Should I make the jump to a velociraptor?

[nowwhatnapster]

I'm having a hard time deciding whether or not to buy into the raptor drives.

Right now i am using a WD5001ABYS, 500gb, enterprize class drive, performance is alright, but i find myself staring at program loading screens too often. I really would like my system to be a little more responsive to programs and such. I know the bottleneck is the Hard drive.

I was hoping to hear back from the community. Others who have switched to Raptor drives, or SSD's.

 

[evongugg]

SSD is the way to go if you don't need ample storage. Please tell us about your other hardware.

SSD Summer Slam: 12 New 2.5" And 1.8" Drives Rounded-Up

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-x25-m-vertex,2399.html

 

[sminlal]

If booting and starting applications is your bottleneck, and if you can fit the OS and applications onto, say, an 80GB drive, then SSD is certainly the best solution.

To get an idea of how much space you need for the OS and your applications, use Explorer to navigate to the root folder on your C:\ drive, then right-click the "Program Files" folder, select "Properties", and wait for the total size number to stop counting. Do the same for the "Windows" folder. The sum of those two numbers is around the amount of space you'll need (but add on 25 or 50% to be on the safe side).

Most of the stuff in the "Documents and Settings" can be moved over onto a standard hard drive with very little effect on boot and application load performance.

If you need more than 80GB, you'll need a larger SSD - it will still perform the best but will (of course) be more expensive.

 

[nowwhatnapster]

Here are my system specs:
Asus P5N-D
Intel Q9550
8GB DDR-800 Corsair ballistix
EVGA GTX 260 core 216
Corsair 750w CMPSU-750HX
Antec 300 case

Currently the sum of those two numbers is 40GB, i usually have another 7GB game installed. So lets just say 47GB plus 50%
we get 69.5 according to your formula. So I guess I'll be fine. I would probably downsize my paging file to 512MB...


I guess Im looking at the first generation Intel X-25M "SSDSA2MH080G1" I can get it for $238.. which is 80 bucks more than the 150GB raptor.

 

[sminlal]

So lets just say 47GB plus 50% we get 69.5 according to your formula.
Sounds good. My "formula" was just picked out of the air - it seems sensible to me but feel free to modify it according to your intuition. For example if you think you're going to be buying a lot of games or installing some large applications in the next year then it might be prudent to use an even bigger "fudge factor".

I would probably downsize my paging file to 512MB...
With 8GB of memory you're probably not using your paging file very much - so you could just move it onto your hard drive.

I guess Im looking at the first generation Intel X-25M "SSDSA2MH080G1" I can get it for $238.. which is 80 bucks more than the 150GB raptor.
That's a 50% increase in price for (and here's another wild guess) a 500% increase in random I/O performance, the biggest factor in booting and loading applications. Actually, the SSD has a seek time that's about 100X faster than the Velociraptor - my "wild guess" is for the improvement in boot/load times you might expect to actually see sitting in front of the computer.

If you're not in a rush try to find one of the 2nd-generation Intel drives. They're faster, cheaper, and will support the Windows 7 TRIM command. Well, the list price is cheaper - I suspect that 1st-generation drive sales may hit a brick wall and there might be some heavy discounting going on...

 

[MRFS]

The VR does not use PMR (perpendicular magnetic recording):

WD's RE3 (RAID Edition) HDDs use PMR, which has a noticeable
effect on raw data rate:

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/productcatalog.asp?language=en


Also, the sheer track density of these RE3 HDDs means that
the outermost tracks have a very high raw data rate
(plus "short strokes" i.e. short movements of the read/write
armature).

We just built a RAID-0 with 2 x 750GB RE3 HDDs
each with 32MB cache: we measure about 200MB/second
sustained on our 50GB C: partition:

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=504

Or, if you don't want to format C: on a RAID array,
here's a new 2TB RE4 HDD with 64MB cache:

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=732
http://www.legitreviews.com/news/6428/
(expensive, but truly extraordinary/recent technology)


The VR is starting to show its age!


MRFS

 

[nowwhatnapster]

Hmm intresting. I did not know about TRIM seems very usefull. I found a second gen for $236 shipped. which is 2 bucks cheaper XD.

Bought it "SSDSA2MH080G2" Back-ordered for a few weeks. 236 - 4.72 Bing CB

$231.28.

I'll probably sell it before the warranty expires and upgrade to a larger model if necessary.
http://www.compsource.com/pn/SSDSA2MH080G2/Intel_211/

 

[sminlal]

Bought it "SSDSA2MH080G2"

Congratulations - let us know how it works out for you!

 

[SimSamurai]

I have some similar questions. I just bought two Velociraptors, a 150gb and a 160gb. I want to use the 150gb as my C drive and before I start I want to know if there is any particular or special way to format these for use with Windows 7 (such as block size allocation) for the operating system drive.

Again, both drives are brand new so I want to set these up right the first time. I would get another one and go with RAID 0 but I have decided its not that necessary for my needs. I have also read on some forums that to properly use RAID 0 with the Velociraptors you should purchase a professional RAID controller card which will allow for setting a 256K block or stripe so as to eliminate the NCQ (native command queing) which is typical of most all motherboards stock RAID control.

The second 160gb drive I am going to use for a dedicated flight simulator drive and have read that it is best to format a V-raptor drive such as this for sim use to a block size of 64k. (and that your C drive must remain at the default 4k allocation for the operating system. This formula was written for XP I believe so I want to know if this holds true for windows 7. ...or particularly Windows 7 x64 as I want the x64 version.

Lastly, I also read that while using single Velociraptors you should make sure to enable the ENHANCED IDE setting in the BIOS when first or prior to installing the operating system. Again, this is becuase it is reported that using the default NCQ settings can destroy the performance of the V-raptors. I have done alot of research and all this was pulled from very credible sources. Just my $.02!

P.S. - My new PC is a 790i FTW Digital, a Q9550 CPU, and 4 gigs of OCZ 2000MHz Flex ram.