Will a 10k HD offer a large performance boost?

[CactusJak]

I ordered all my hardware last weekend (see sig), but I haven't decided if I should buy a WD Raptor 74GB 10k drive. I've currently got 2 160GB Seagate ATA100 drives and I can't decide if I should just stick those into the new system or not.

Fry's has the Raptor on sale for $160 - $30 rebate. Will a 10k SATA drive offer a large performance boost over my 7200 ATA100 drives?

 

[Mickey21]

Which 160GB drives in particular were those?

In short, well the Raptors are fast drives, but it really depends on what you do most with your computer... Personally for all around needs I would go with a larger but fast drive. Seagate 7200.9 or Maxtor 16MB cache drives come to mind, or Seagate 7200.8 drives. Forget about the RAID 0, unless you just want the larger volumes and could care less about data security on your main box...

 

[xit2nowhere]

It doesn't really matter for games.

 

[CactusJak]

I don't remember off the top of my head the exact drives I have. They're identical, Seagate, 160GB, 7200 RPM, ATA100, 8meg cache. I'm not familiar yet with the 7200.x terminology, so I can't answer that part.

My primary interest is increasing the performance of games.

My idea was to boot off the Raptor and install games and such on it, while using 1 or 2 of the Seagates as secondary drives for installing various programs (word processor, spreadsheet, html editor, etc) and for backups.

 

[Markbnj]

I think that the Raptors probably aren't worth the price differential at retail. They are very fast, perhaps a little noisy, and a little warmer than a 7.2k drive. I am not sorry I bought mine, though. It does speed up loading of games and installing software. I think if you can get one for $138 (final after rebate) that is a great price and you won't regret it.

It's a fairly small drive, though. Even with the 74 gig I will need another larger drive soon.

 

[mshan]

From what I've read, the Raptors will probably make your system "faster" in terms of how quick it feels (i.e. instantaneous responsiveness when clicking on program icons, opening programs, etc. with Windows).

Sustained transfer (e. g. loading games) would be much faster than older drives with 40 or 80 gb platters, but it seems that performance of some of the new 100 gb platters drives is comparable to the Raptors (you get a lot more storage for probably a cheaper price).

 

[stevty2889]

Your system would "feel" a little more responsive, and you may get 2-3 second faster loading times in games and such. For me it just wasn't worth it, I can't really notice much differance between my WD SATA II drive, and my raid-0 raptors. Not really worth the price if you ask me.

 

[BigCoolJesus]

for me, in game loading, it didnt help (at least noticeably, maybe one second at most)

 

[CactusJak]

Funny, I hadn't really considered buying a 7200 SATA drive. I was thinking of getting a hard drive that upgraded not only from ATA to SATA but also from 7200 to 10k. I'll have to give this some more thought.

 

[CraigRT]

I went from a Seagate 7200.7 120GB drive, to a Raptor 10K 74GB. I am now back at a 7200.8 drive with 250GB of storage. I am very happy with it. The Raptor's a cool hard drive, built very nicely, but it is just not worth it IMO.

I am very happy with my 7200.8 even though it may not be the fastest drive out there. It's fast enough.

 

[mrza]

Is this a good hard drive?

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16822144701

 

[acole1]

my friend wont touch one again. he got one for his gaming system but it broke w\ in 3 days. the 10k just doesnt last very long. i would say its not worth it. RAID up some SATA's if you want some good speed in game loading.

 

[Makaveli]

the 10k just doesnt last very long

LMAO