WD Raptor... Where are its competitors?

[BigCoolJesus]

Originally posted by: Pr0d1gy

Originally posted by: BigCoolJesus

Originally posted by: Pr0d1gy

Originally posted by: BigCoolJesus

Originally posted by: Pr0d1gy
My Windows XP Pro boots up in 3 "bars" with my Raptor, so it wounds like you were doing something wrong. I wouldn't trade my Raptor for anything. I am almost always the first guy on a map in BF2, although I only use 1gb of RAM. The case fans are definitely louder than the Raptor ever is and I just use a slow Hitachi drive for storage.

If you just want the fastest drive you can get & storage isn't an issue, I would definitely recommend the 74gb Raptor from my personal experience with it.

Just to ask, how the hell would i be at fault for my sh!tty ass raptor not being "super ultra mega ub0r" fast?


and i love your statement

I am almost always the first guy on a map in BF2

because it almost means something............almost




After my personal experience, and after gaining good knowledge as to whats better in a computer, id reccomend an extra Gig of RAM or a step up in a GPU or a step up in a CPU over a Raptor

Actually it does mean something in BF2 because it doesn't wait for everyone to load up. Thank you, come again. I'm not trying to justify anything because A) I'm not a poor b1tch & B) I love my Raptor.

I'm not a poor b1tch

a little full of ourselves arent we?


and i was making fun of the fact that your happy your the first one to load, so umm i dont need to "come again" (good use of a cliche, awesome, very original).....

im glad you can beat everyone else by .5 seconds, but whoses go the least laugh when you paid $100 more for no actual performance gain that will HELP YOU in BF2
(loading a map quicker means jacksh!t.....having 20 extra fps when you can barley push 30 means a whole hell of a lot for your opponent)

Seriously though, is $100 that big of a deal to you? You may want to consider going the console route if it is. As has been mentioned, the hard drive is the biggest bottleneck in a modern PC....so why not get the fastest one you can get at a reasonable price? I don't need a 400gb drive to stash all my pr0n like you, but I do want the fastest gaming machine I can get.

I mean people spend $800 to get .4Ghz and some multipliers for the high end processors, why should I feel like a jack4ss for paying a few extra bucks to open up the biggest bottleneck in my computer?

Do us a favor & go argue with the guys at StorageReview.com

glad i kept reading to find this post 🙂

Seriously though, is $100 that big of a deal to you? You may want to consider going the console route if it is.

First, a 74GB raptor is at the very least $150.....second your generalizing.
If your talking about a processor, video card, monitor or RAM, no $150 is not a lot, in fact its dirt cheap.

When your talking about a Hard Drive, a component that doesnt matter in a GAMING COMPUTER (gaming = FPS)

Why not save $75 and dump it into a better Graphics card or more RAM or a better CPU?
ITS A GAMING COMPUTER.......FPS and the highest possible textures you can get are relevant, loading a map in under 1 second is not
(wow, you made it to the map 1 second before me, i guess that means you automatically win, gameover for me? 😕 )


Maybe you should look into a console
(btw i dont need to, i already have one, thanks anyways)

 

[rohbshop]

Raptor sounds cool, like Baracuda, thats why i might get one. Not sure yet, deciding between 74gb Raptor or 400GB WDC400. I know I dont need that much space but its convenient especially if your currently in a position where space is a problem. on the other hand Raptor has a cool name, nice warranty, and a reputation for not breaking down. tough call~

 

[BigCoolJesus]

It all really depends.

First, i wouldnt buy parts based off of names though (the Radeon sound cooler to me, but im glad i got an Nvidia 😉 )


second, how much space do you use now?

take that, and for upgrade purposes/safe guessing, add 20GB



so if you use 35GB now, add about 20 and that gives you 55GB, so by all means, get a raptor if you have the money and dont NEED TO buy anything else instead

 

[rohbshop]

I think i have a 8 GB harddrive right now, but i cant remember exactly, its probably a bit higher but not by much since i can only fit like 3 games on it right now (World of Warcraft, Warcraft 3, Warhammer 40k, other various software that came from the original bundle is also on it). basically i bought my current system from Alienware a long time ago when the Nvidia TI 500 was kind of new and still using it for a lot of money its almost embarressing looking back. This is partly why i think getting something huge like a 400GB one wouldnt make me ever have to worry about storage, uninstalling some games to load other ones onto it is such a downer.

IT scares me now that people are speaking up against the Raptor. It seemed like before today everyone recommended it like it was awesome, but reading now people that know their stuff are saying bad things about it. So i think i'm leaning towards the 400GB one, the cost difference isnt much between the 2 so its been a tough call. thx for the advice )

 

[BigCoolJesus]

Originally posted by: rohbshop
I think i have a 8 GB harddrive right now, but i cant remember exactly, its probably a bit higher but not by much since i can only fit like 3 games on it right now (World of Warcraft, Warcraft 3, Warhammer 40k, other various software that came from the original bundle is also on it). basically i bought my current system from Alienware a long time ago when the Nvidia TI 500 was kind of new and still using it for a lot of money its almost embarressing looking back. This is partly why i think getting something huge like a 400GB one wouldnt make me ever have to worry about storage, uninstalling some games to load other ones onto it is such a downer.

IT scares me now that people are speaking up against the Raptor. It seemed like before today everyone recommended it like it was awesome, but reading now people that know their stuff are saying bad things about it. So i think i'm leaning towards the 400GB one, the cost difference isnt much between the 2 so its been a tough call. thx for the advice )

Well in terms of how its built and its reliability, the Raptor is good......no better but no worse then anyother drive.

In terms of the actual performance difference youll see, and the cost for that difference, its split 50/50.
With the newer drives coming out (the new 7200.9 from Seagate) and the new Hitachi's, the gap between 7.2K and 10K (the raptor) is being closed a good amount.


So basically its all your decision.

Do you want to pay $170 for 70GB of storage and inreturn achieve a 1-3 second boost in speed on some loading/saving of files?

or do you want to pay the same amount and get 400GB of storage and never have to worry about file sizes?

 

[t3h l337 n3wb]

Yeah, seriously, who cares if you're the first one on a map in a CS game. You just saved a couple seconds and wasted $130...

 

[Wall7486]

I agree with all of you. The price of raptor is a bit too expensive for such an old drive. But, at the time when it first came out the raptor had no competition. Maxtor wasn't even that popular 2+ years ago. The raptor was certainly worth it during the initial year when it first came out because nothing came close to it. Now with new technology this 2+ year old can no longer compete. I'd like to see a new raptor before we do any furtuer comparison. Of course the Raptor will be slower than many of the 7200.8, 7k600, and whatever you can name because it's an old drive. Other then that it's still a very reliable drive, just the price is a bit too high. I'd like to see a price cut soon.

 

[skriefal]

A Raptor will be worthwhile if the apps you're running result in a large number of random seeks -- in this case, the fast seek times will really allow a nice speed boost. An example where this would be useful? I work on a very large .NET project at work, with several thousand C# source files. A compile of this project results in several million page faults, and completes on my Dell Optiplex (with 7200rpm Seagate SATA drive) in about 23 minutes. Others with similar hardware and a Raptor drive report that their compiles complete in 7 minutes or less. You can bet I'm trying to get a Raptor for my PC too...

 

[JBDan]

Originally posted by: Markbnj
I have to say I am not that thrilled with the 74g Raptor. It's not size, as I don't often need hundreds of gigs, but it is noisy as hell. I agree with the other poster who said that RPM quickly gets swamped in realworld access patterns too.

Its only noisy because of the way its installed in the Wavemaster. I had a Tsunami and thought the same thing. The drive is actually very quiet in my P180, not necesarily because of the case, in which the case does help a little, but rather the cage structure/mount and the silicone grommets. You are hearing resonance/vibration in the wavemaster.

 

[virtualrain]

Some of my own comments on the Raptors...

I have a pair in a RAID array and they absolutely kick ass. Windows load time for me when using bootvis to benchmark with my setup just after a fresh Win SP2 install was 2.9 sec!

I agree that they are expensive, but they are better value than SCSI and if you are spending near top dollar to extract every last bit of performance out of your personal computer, like I recently did, you will want nothing else for HD's (until WD builds a bigger bader raptor).

They are not any noisier than my pair of Maxtor 120G drives (also in a RAID array).

I say if you want the best storage combination, get a pair of Raptors in a RAID array for your boot/OS/apps/pagefile/temp and then get a monster drive or pair for your vice of choice.

Don't underestimate HD seek time importance for something so simple as web browsing. Everytime you load a webpage, your HD has to search your temp internet files folder for all the images and content that were loaded last time which is a lot of seeking around... a job ideally suited for the Raptor.

Ultimately, this discussion will likely be a thing of the past soon when we're all using some kind of RAM disk for key file storage.

 

[JSt0rm]

Originally posted by: t3h l337 n3wb
Yeah, seriously, who cares if you're the first one on a map in a CS game. You just saved a couple seconds and wasted $130...

well its a gaurantee that your there for the pistol round silly 😉 Really the back and forth about this stuff is kinda dumb. I mean who cares how somebody else spends their money.

 

[Crashedout]

I bought the first gen when it came out because it slaughtered all other ata drives at the time. They caught up and the 2nd gen came out and did it again. Now it has been surpassed again and I look forward to buying the 3rd gen, if it ever comes out. If you have to buy now and cannot wait I would get the latest 7.2k.