raptor worth it?

[kcrush]

Its a gaming right right?

Well the question is, when you say gaming...do you mean games like texas hold'em or chess or RTS games where its load once and then it stays in memory.

Or do you play FPS games with lots of zone loading or MMO's where its accessing the games database and images a lot (plus zone loading)?

If the answer is the first one you will see little benefit from the raptor. If you play the second or any type of game where it access the drive other than once in a blue moon OR you multi task then a raptor makes a big difference.

On a scale from causal gamer to hardcore gamer, the closer you are to hardcore, the more raptors become required components in any gaming rig.

 

[Surferosa]

Worth it? In the sense that your getting value for money? No. If you want the performance on a budget you can get 2x 7200rpm drives in RAID 0 that will outperform it.

But- remember RAID 0 is a much less secure way of storing data than 1 HD. If you dont like the extra risks involved with RAID 0, the raptor is the fastest you can get.

If I was shopping on a budget, would I get one? Nope. But, if you can afford the extra- its a damn nice luxury to have. Just dont sacrifice anything else in your system for it.

 

[gahleon]

I have a 74 GB raptor as my primary and love it. The claims of the excess heat is crap. I have a passive cooling zalman cooler on it which has rubber standoffs and that drive is quieter than my seagate 400gb 7200 and never hits more than 30 C under load and hits 23 c idle. The truth of the matter is, that it is all about how you set up your case. If you engineer your cooling solution like crap then the noise and heat could be a problem contingent upon your setup but if you aren't a NOOB then it won't be a problem and it will help with a bottleneck problem.

Whether or not it is worth it depends really on your budget and the guys above me note some worth while inquiries to make. What will you use it for and how worried about data are you? Primary drive with a secondary media drive then get 2 in raid zero if you have a nice MB

 

[Spikke]

I love my Raptor for all the reasons previously stated and I have no issues with heat or excessive noise. I recommend one and plan on buying another 1(or 2) for my next build.

 

[sailer]

Ok, I voted yes, a Raptor is worth it in my opinion. Many people will object to the high price, heat, and noise. But when it comes to speed, it is still the king. It may be displaced by 7200 RPM drives running in RAID, but Raptors can run in RAID as well. When considering price, how much does the latest, greatest graphics card cost? When considering heat, how much do we complain about how hot the graphics cards are, and the measures that are taken to cool them? The same can be said about new, fast cpus.

Is a Raptor necessary? Not at all, but neither are 8800 GTX or 8800 Ultra graphics cards and a lot of other bits of hardware that enthusiasts buy. Can the money be spent on other better parts, cpus, graphics cards, etc. Sure, unless you already have the top cpu and graphics card of the moment. In my opinion, and as someone else pointed out, Raptors may even be a better investment in the long run. Two or three years from now, the Raptor will still be in place and expected to keep going. How many new cpus and/or graphics cards will be bought in that time frame? Even if a person doesn't upgrade their cpu/graphics card, newer and faster ones will be built.

I bought a Raptor and have been satisfied with it. Compared with the cost of the rest of the computer, the extra money wasn't that much. I do have a 7200 rpm drive as a second drive.

Anyway, that's my opinion and others are welcome to theirs. We all have our own priorities and will buy what we want as we feel we need.

 

[Hatman]

From what I know a raid with 2x 7200rpm's beat a single 10k rpm in performance value AND storage.

For my new setup, i have been looking towards getting 2x 320gig seagates to run in raid and a small 36gig raptor drive to install windows on.

Reason for the small one for windows are that Ive heard windows cannot be installed on raided drives and run properly (might be true might not be) and that windows is something that i wouldnt want to brake by raiding 2 drives if one where to go.

Then I can just load up windows dead fast and I have 320gig of raided super speed for apps games etc etc.

Whole setup would cost me $240 - $300. So its alright.

 

[petevsdrm]

From what I know a raid with 2x 7200rpm's beat a single 10k rpm in performance value AND storage.

For my new setup, i have been looking towards getting 2x 320gig seagates to run in raid and a small 36gig raptor drive to install windows on.

That's pretty much the setup I have now, I just use a 74 gig raptor partitioned ~30gig for XP and ~40gig for vista, and 2 320gig 7200.10's in a raid0 for games. Runs great.

 

[Hatman]

If anything, id say this looks much mroe appealing than a raptor by far.

http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/117752

15k rpm scsi drive, and as far as I know that should out do a raptor drive by miles and its roughly the same price.

 

[cyberjock]

What about a 15k HD? The advantage to 10k vice 7200RPM is mostly latency, so 15k would be even better. I had a 15k U320 SCSI HD about a year ago and I loved it. And SAS apparently is backwards compatible with SATA.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822116015

 

[flasher702]

http://storagereview.com/Testbed4Compare.sr

There are faster drives. And there are certainly comparable drives that offer a lot more capacity/$. Also, depending on what you're doing, a raid array of cheaper drives would offer a lot more performance/$.

Anytime someone asks if something is "worth it" they probably don't understand what they're asking... Worth WHAT? What are you trying to accomplish? Why are you trying to accomplish it? How and under what constraints are you trying to accomplish it?

 

[bkiserx7]

Windows might load a second or two faster and you might shave a fraction of a second off your save times but with the heat, and noise generated and the expense per gig you would be much better off going with a couple of big 7200rpm drives.

When the Raptor was released it was significantly faster than any other drive which made it a name for itself but since then 7200rpm drives have been catching up. Your not going to see a large enough performance increase to justify the cost.

You took the words out of my mouth. The slight speed difference is not worth the price premium nowadays.

this coming from the guy with the raptor in his sig :lol:

i would go with the raptor for multiple reasons: $2300 budget, higher MTBF, decreased access times, and faster overall performance

 

[computerKlok]

Reason for the small one for windows are that Ive heard windows cannot be installed on raided drives and run properly (might be true might not be)

that is completely not true. every commercial windows server in the world runs raid (mostly 1, 5, and 0+1 though) even so i've built a dozen or so desktop systems running raid (with cards and with out) that have ran beautifully

But- remember RAID 0 is a much less secure way of storing data than 1 HD. If you dont like the extra risks involved with RAID 0, the raptor is the fastest you can get.

when you run raid you add an additional component to go bad otherwise raid 0 is just as unsafe as a single drive ie drive 1 of 1 crashes you lose every thing drive 1 of 2 crashes you lose every thing (raid 0 only)

i run a raptor in my rig and will never go back, cpu/gpu makes the game play experience, but for loading, saves, initial load, web surfing, desktop publishing, all the other things i use the computer for the raptor makes the difference. the heat is not an issue and my gpu fan is louder then anything in the raptor will ever do.


so for absolute best performance 2 150 GB in raid 0, or 2 74GB in raid 0 then a lager 7200 RPM drive for data. and use a raid controller (for the same reason you're going to buy a sound card)

for cheap but good 2 320GB (or what ever size really) raid 0. gives you big size and does as well as 1 raptor for around the same price

 

[petevsdrm]

Windows might load a second or two faster and you might shave a fraction of a second off your save times but with the heat, and noise generated and the expense per gig you would be much better off going with a couple of big 7200rpm drives.

When the Raptor was released it was significantly faster than any other drive which made it a name for itself but since then 7200rpm drives have been catching up. Your not going to see a large enough performance increase to justify the cost.

You took the words out of my mouth. The slight speed difference is not worth the price premium nowadays.

this coming from the guy with the raptor in his sig :lol:

i would go with the raptor for multiple reasons: $2300 budget, higher MTBF, decreased access times, and faster overall performance

When I bought my raptor(8mb cache btw ) the difference in speed was HUGE. There were no 7200rpm drives that even came close to matching the raptor in performance.

The same cannot be said today.

Raptors have not gained any performance since they were released, while 7200rpm drives have made leaps in performance that narrows the difference between the two to almost nothing.

Check out the benches for the new 1TB hitachi drive -
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2949&p=9

Yes, the raptor is faster by less than a tenth of a second.

if that .03 of a second is worth the ENORMOUS price tag of the raptor, then go for it. :lol:

For the cost of 2 150gig raptors, you could get a 1000gig hitachi with nearly identical performance.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136012

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145141

So, I say again, the raptor is most definitely NOT worth the price tag.

 

[Dade_0182]

Way to flip your lid

an 8800 gtx is R7000
a 30" is R4500 MINIMUM
Big sound is about R2800 for audigy and the speakers are at least R500 for CRAP.

And you say I'm the one that buys at incredible connection?

A raptor is only R1800 for a 78 gb.

And a 320GB drive is R791. That's about 4.5 times the size and less than half the price.

Oh and you are a system admin or some such, so YES you are definitely a pirate cause you don't use your pc for the only thing that takes space, VIDEO, so IOW i will bet money there are many many MANY pirated movies on your pc, oh and yes, YOU ARE FROM SOUTH AFRICA. You, Jack Sparrow, likely have copies of all 3 movies on your pc.

I am not a system admin though our current one does come and ask me to help him out a fair amount of time. I do not have many many MANY movies on my drives as you state (the biggest drive I own is a 250GB) and I do not have any of the Pirates of the Caribean movies on my computer or on any pirated disks. I have the first two original and will patiently be waiting for the third.

I did not directly accuse YOU of being a pirate but you seem to take great offense to it so it MUST be true, people are generally scared of/offended by the truth.

I am a very honest man so I have a huge problem with false claims. Especially since you don't know me from a bar of soap. You must be allknowing.

Also for someone who is complaining about prices i doubt that you can afford the equipment to get good enough quality video equipment to fill up your space. Oh yes, it s also the middle of the day and you are supposed to be working so you are also busy slacking off and getting paid to do so so cram a sock in it.

What I own or what I do with my time has absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand or with you. I help clients with their problems. No clients no work. So you tell me where I'm slacking off...

 

[NightlySputnik]

Dude you don't understand speed, space is for pirates.

2 raptors running in raid, your load times will be cut in less than half you will never have to sit through a load screen again. TRUST ME.

Raptors are worth it if you get 2 of them they are faster than anything else you get and if you actually ever see them working you will know why, you cannot explain how much better they are. IF you can afford 2 then GET THEM. Otherwise 1 is not worth the mula but 2 together are worth it. No matter what anyone says, a 7200 rpm will not come anywhere near a raptor. some aspects of the drive may be newer and better but a raptor is MUCH faster.

If you can afford to get 2 which it seem you can dont evenhesitate, but if you can only get one then forget about it.

Oh and to the darthmaul guy if you buy from berklands then what do you expect, get direct from rectron or bethesda, e-comp even but their service sucks and they are generally idiots.

WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I personally have two 320GB Seagate drive (not in RAID for security reasons), one 160GB Maxtor drive (from previous PC) and one 250GB MyBook WD USB2.0 drive, for a total of 1050GB (in marketing value) of spaces.

Now, considering that all new games take about 5GB for every one of them. Add that I don't remove games when I'm done with them (who knows when I'll go online with them). For 10 games that already use 50GB of spaces. Not too good when using a 74GB Raptor... isn't it :twisted: . Ah! And it's not 10 but 20-30 games that I've got on my HDD.

Add to this the more then 2000 pics that I took with my Nikon D80 and you get another 10-20GB and growing.

Now it's time to put in my MiniDV movies at 15GB an hours before doing any work on it. I have 10 of those tapes waiting for my vacations to be worked with.

Finally, about 30+ GB of MP3's I encoded from my own collections of 200CD, from Madonna to Iron Maiden, Bryan Adams and Red Hot Chili Peppers. Actually, only half of them I did already, so put this number up by a lot when done. This is only fair use back-up copy. No distribution on BitTorrent

In case you didn't see it yet, I'm just trying to show you that you're just fu++ing st++id to think that capacity is only for pirates. I "might" loose 2 seconds over you to start any applications, but with 4GB memory I'll get it all back in a blink of an eyes.

 

[locky28]

I bought mine back in 2004 I think, and it was the shiznit back then and still is now. Best component I ever invested in, still holds the performance crown and looks like It will for years to come. It's really not that hot, sometimes cooler than my 7200.10, the noise is noticeable but that doesn't bother me, only OS and heavily used games go on it so whenever it's making a racket I'm either only starting my PC up, listening to music, or gaming with headphones. My Movies/Music/Games that don't need awesome load time go on the 400Gb.

If you can afford one easily, get it, totally worth it.
You could mirror some 7200rpm's for a bit less money but then you have a RAID array to manage and a lot less data security. Load speeds are very noticeably increased, I particularly notice this in games like BF2 were your load time is what determines whether you get a jet or are ground pounding the rest of the map 😀 .

Raptor's FTW.

 

[petevsdrm]

Dude you don't understand speed, space is for pirates.

Or anyone who uses their PC as a DVR and multimedia center. Video files take up a lot of space. For that matter games take up a lot of space nowadays too.

2 raptors running in raid, your load times will be cut in less than half you will never have to sit through a load screen again. TRUST ME.

No, they won't. If you don't know what you are talking about, then don't talk. Also if you don't know what you are talking about, don't tell people to trust you, when you shouldn't be trusted.

These reviews show the actual benefits in real-world applications that you will get from raiding your hard drives(including raptors).
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2969&p=8
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2974&p=5
The average benefits are usually between 3% and 8% for a raid0.
Not 100%. :roll:

No matter what anyone says, a 7200 rpm will not come anywhere near a raptor. some aspects of the drive may be newer and better but a raptor is MUCH faster.

Here you go again "no matter what anyone says" when you are the only one spouting totally false BS.
Here is another Anand review showing the EXTREMELY SMALL difference between raptors and other, fast 7200rpm drives in actual applications.
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2949&p=9

Man, please in the future do a little research before posting. The purpose of this forum is not to spread misinformation.

 

[Dade_0182]

No kidding on the games part. Stalker takes basically 10GB all on it's own. My CSS - fully updated and A LOT of maps and stuff - is about 20GB. Toca and some other games (can't remember which, got too many installed) takes like 7GB. That's only 3 games and I've got MANY and already we are about halfway to filling a 74GB drive...

I've only got IDE drives at the moment so even a 7200RPM drive will be a nice upgrade for me. I'd buy a raptor for bragging rights or if I have too much money to waste...

 

[f61]

No they're not worth the money... these are

Caviar RE WD1600YS

Download the firmware revision or die! But these in Raid0 should give you a po-boys raptor without the price. Oh, SIXTY BUCKS each.

f61