To Raptor or not to Raptor??

[mexpedip]

I just got the 500gb 7200.11. I read all the comparisons etc. and the best example I can give regarding speed is this; I play BF2 and when new maps load I am in the game when the countdown timer (to start the new round) is still @ 5-7 seconds. I am in before anyone else. The Raptor might have slightly faster load times but at this point it would not make a difference. I would recommend the Seagate over everything else. The only argument that I can see for the raptor is that newegg is selling "open box" raptor drives for $109.

 

[Lavacon]

Tjhva, why are you reading this then?
What if we are bored? I know I am. It's a slow day at work. This could be a good topic for those people who do not have a raptor.

 

[DXRick]

I used 15K RPM SCSI drives in my previous system. They are
LOUD and run HOT . You need dedicated HD fans to cool them, which adds to the system noise. I doubt they could make 15K drives today that are as quiet as 7.5K drives and don't require fans.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

A 15,000 RPM Raptor with SATA 2 may not be that far away. SCSI drives of 15,000 RMP have been around for while, so its more a matter of adapting and updating a SCSI drive to desktop use than anything else. The real determination will be if WD feels that the expense is worth the sales potential. If the problems of noise and heat could be dealt with, I would indeed like such a drive.

A while is calling it a bit short.....think about it you could buy one in the last millenium. To my mind, 15k Raptors seems unlikely and WD has too many problems right now to take such a chance. They have the lowest financial margins of any HD vendor right now with Sage cruising at 25 or so and them down around the mid teens.

WD went with the 10k looking for a price point in between SCSI drives and 7200 rpm drives. The problem with Raptors is their small size. I can buy a 450 GB 15k Cheetah....Raptors still stuck at 1/3 the size though the 15k.6's are pretty darn hard to find being all scooped up by system vendors.

Seagate 7200.11 500 GB = $0.24 / GB
Samsung F1 750GB = $0.20 / GB
Raptor 150 GB = 1.16 / GB
Cheetah 15K 300 GB = $1.90 / GB

Raptors are 5 times as expensive per GB as a 7200.11
Cheetah's are 1.6 times as expensive per GB as Raptors

Just think, you could have three 500 GB 7200.11's with 1.5 terabytes of storage for what it would cost you to buy 2 Raptors and get 300 MB of storage.

And the performance difference between Raptors and 7200.11's is far smaller than that between Raptors and Cheetahs. The Samsung F1 is even a better buy as it's faster then even the Seagate and it's $150 for 750 GB. Would take 5 units and $875 to get that with Raptors.

There's dozens of threads on this same subject over the last 2 weeks alone so won't bother repeating but note:

-The Raptor's reliability rating at storagereview.com was that it was better than 12% of the other drives out there. Seagate's was up at 93%.

Read these:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/12/21/toms_reference_system/

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/11/21/samsung_overtakes_with_a_bang/page11.html
"The Korean uber-company... really made it: it beat Hitachi, Seagate and Western Digital when it comes to performance. Hitachi and Seagate still offer better access times, which is why Samsung does not dominate the I/O benchmarks, but only the Barracuda 7200.11's access time is noticeably quicker. The maximum throughput of 118 MB/s is up to 18% faster than Seagate's 100 MB/s maximum, and the average and minimum throughput when reading and writing also dominate the benchmark results. When compared to WD's Caviar GP, the new Spinpoint F1 by Samsung offers roughly a third more throughput, which is very respectable."

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/11/05/the_terabyte_battle/page9.html
"Hitachi and Seagate battle head to head when it comes to winning the heart of the enthusiast who wants as much performance as possible. The Deskstar 7K1000 still does okay in the access time and I/O performance tests, but it loses ground when it comes to transfer rates. The Barracuda 7200.11 offers the best low-level benchmark results, jumping over 100 MB/s read or write transfer rates and accessing data in an average of 12.7 ms. With the exception of access time and I/O benchmarks, it also clearly beats Western Digital's 10,000 RPM Raptor, and sets the new standard for desktop hard drives. (It's about time for Western Digital to come up with a new Raptor drive. Based on current technology, it should be able to regain everything that has been lost to Seagate right now.)

Being 10k, it will have a faster access time than it's 7200 rpm brethren, but if it's gaming performance you are looking for, the Seagate beats the Raptor in the benchmarks and the Samsung beats the Seagate. To my mind, if it's database performance you are looking for, if you can justify the huge cost per GB increase of Raptors, you can just as easily justify the the incremental increase to 15k SCSI drives.

 

[weskurtz81]

I am kind of surprised not Raptor supporters have come in here yet. I own two Raptors, and recommend going with Seagate. The Raptors are nice, but not worth the premium, and performance is VERY close, probably not noticeable in the real world (everything but synthetic benchmarks).

 

[Lavacon]

I am torn Between the Samsung spinpoint and the seagate 7200.11....

hmmmmmmm

 

[Lavacon]

I am thinking I like to the 7200.11 over the Samsung based on benchmarks . The access times and the average read writes are better for me with the 7200.11

 

[sailer]

A while is calling it a bit short.....think about it you could buy one in the last millenium. To my mind, 15k Raptors seems unlikely and WD has too many problems right now to take such a chance.

I guess "being around for a while" as meaning a short time or a long time is a matter of symantics. My meaning was that they had been around for many years, which would include the 1990's or "last millenium". And you put a long explaination for my short one, that whether WD actually does release a 15,000 RPM Raptor will be whether or not they think they can do it and make a profit. Yes, Raptors are expensive per gb, and SCSI cards are more expensive per gb.

With current 7200 RPM drives delivering nearly the same performance, I would no longer recommend a Raptor to anyone except those who are financially well off and no other part of their machine could be effectively updated. In other words, someone with more money than sense. That fits into my first post, when I said that if I was to buy a hard drive for the OS today, it would be a Seagate. In my opinion, the time when Raptors ruled is gone with the past.

 

[grieve]

I would Definitely agree that Raptors are loud.. I wish I had 2*Seagate 7200.11 32MB in Raid 0 instead of the raptors for OS.

In fact I am considering purchasing 2* 100GIG 7200.11 for just this purpose. My comp is just too loud and getting rid of the raptors would be nice.

 

[Hatman]

Meh, id go with 4drive raid0 over raptors anyday, if you want gd perf.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

With current 7200 RPM drives delivering nearly the same performance, I would no longer recommend a Raptor to anyone except those who are financially well off and no other part of their machine could be effectively updated. In other words, someone with more money than sense. That fits into my first post, when I said that if I was to buy a hard drive for the OS today, it would be a Seagate. In my opinion, the time when Raptors ruled is gone with the past.

Back in the ole days when SCSI was more mainstream (heck the machine behind me has SCSI controller "on board" the MoBo (Asus P2B-S) and manufacturers inroduced new lines in SCSI versions before IDE versions, I was always surprised at how peeps would justify their costs. They'd willingly pay double to go from the 2nd best CPU to the best CPU adding $400-500 to their system cost but adding $150-$250 to go from IDE to SCSI was "too much money".

 

[rgeist554]

I think the 7200.11 is the clear winner in this discussion!

Someone say raptor? Jesus.

 

[jeremyrailton]

bottom line: they won't help you that much, you'll probably just find your system louder and then you'll run out of space for applications very soon if you're installing new games. It will be much more convenient to just get a big fast 7200rpm drive.

 

[Lavacon]

Rawr.. Raptor Jesus

I ordered a 500gb 7200.11 Last night. I'll see how it goes. Hopefully it's better then my old 7200.10

 

[systemlord]

From what I've read, WD is working on a 15,000 RPM Raptor with SATA 2 to replace the present Raptor line. Whether or when the new style Raptors come out is anybody's guess at the moment.

I have a Raptor 150 myself and so far I like it. Its a bit noisier than either my Seagates or other WD hard drives, but faster for loading the OS and games. That said, if I was to buy a new Hard drive for holding the OS today, I would pick a Seagate. The Seagate may be a touch slower, but its a lot cheaper for way more capacity.

Why is it that Western Digital has to go 15,000 rpm's to compete with companies like Samsung and others. WD should be able to compete with others with 7200 rpm's. Don't get me wrong I love my Raptor 150GB drive, but don't know why WD has to go 15,000 rpm to compete.

 

[systemlord]

I own a raptor 150. The thing is loud, very loud, and I don't notice a difference in performance over a normal hard drive. I would much rather have bought another 500 gb instead and saved some money.

The reason your Raptor loud is because of your cases acoustic signature, I just changed cases a few months back and now my Raptor is louder than it ever has been in my new case.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Why is it that Western Digital has to go 15,000 rpm's to compete with companies like Samsung and others. WD should be able to compete with others with 7200 rpm's. Don't get me wrong I love my Raptor 150GB drive, but don't know why WD has to go 15,000 rpm to compete.

Seagate, Maxtor, Fujitsu, Hitachi owned the server market cause WD didn't have an entry....and it is a very profitable sector. Seagate Technology and Fujitsu, respectively command 45 and 20 percent of this profitable sector. Hitachi ranks third in this four-company market at 18 percent, followed by Maxtor at 14 percent....that's 97%....not a lot of room there for WD to be a player.

Servers and enthusiasts machines were SCSI partly because of HD speed and partly cause the I/O load was shifted off the CPU. That gave us more CPU for our programs. But as SATA reduced some of that performance difference, WD decided it would try and find a market niche between the two.....making a drive that would serve as a "bargain basement" server drive and at the same time a enthusiasts drive with not quite the price tag of SCSI. They succeeded to the point of you don't see SCSI marketed to enthusiasts much any more...I can't remember a MoBo w/ on board SCSI in ages.

Then SATA drive prices went in the toilet. Raptor started to lose market share because of the cost per GB and then the, perhaps because they tried to reduce manufacturing costs, the latest versions have had reliability issues garnering only a 12 percentile in reliability ratings.

The problem WD has is maintaining a 10k production line for a relatively small market. They haven't made server inroads, which leaves just the geek squad market to go to.....and why buy a Raptor when games take up 12 or more GB leaving you with room for just 10 games.

The Raptors problem is that to spin that fast they only have one or two 75 GB platters. The new Cheetah 15k.6 I believe has 1-3 platters at about 150 GB per platter. With SCSI and Raptors having a presumably longer time to market because of manufacturing tolerances and testing, the Raptor is left in a position by the time it comes out, the other vendors have yet again increased density and they can get these newer / better drives out faster. 10K is only 38% faster than 7200 whereas 15k is 208% faster.

SATA is $0.24 / GB
Raptors are $1.16 / GB
SCSI is $1.87 / GB

So you pay 500% for a marginal increase in performance but than only 50% more for a doubling of performance. That's why they are struggling, they lost their niche....most people willing to pay $1.16 would pay $1.87. So in order to regain it, they either have to lower their price, tough give manufacturing tolerances for higher speeds or get faster.

Now we see a lot of talk about 2.5" drives. Because of huge increases in density, these drives are attractive cause vendors can put out the size people need on a smaller platter. Smaller platters mean ya ca spin em faster with less power and less heat.

http://www.eetimes.com/issue/bus/OEG20040219S0022
http://www.seagate.com/docs/pdf/datasheet/disc/ds_savvio_15k.pdf

So the economics have to be considered with regard to maintaining both 2.5 and 3.5 inch production lines and the reliability issues as well......will we soon see desktops offered with HD SLI with matched RAID 0 2.5 drives ? Maybe the new Raptor will be a 2.5".

 

[systemlord]

Seagate, Maxtor, Fujitsu, Hitachi owned the server market cause WD didn't have an entry....and it is a very profitable sector. Seagate Technology and Fujitsu, respectively command 45 and 20 percent of this profitable sector. Hitachi ranks third in this four-company market at 18 percent, followed by Maxtor at 14 percent....that's 97%....not a lot of room there for WD to be a player.

Servers and enthusiasts machines were SCSI partly because of HD speed and partly cause the I/O load was shifted off the CPU. That gave us more CPU for our programs. But as SATA reduced some of that performance difference, WD decided it would try and find a market niche between the two.....making a drive that would serve as a "bargain basement" server drive and at the same time a enthusiasts drive with not quite the price tag of SCSI. They succeeded to the point of you don't see SCSI marketed to enthusiasts much any more...I can't remember a MoBo w/ on board SCSI in ages.

Then SATA drive prices went in the toilet. Raptor started to lose market share because of the cost per GB and then the, perhaps because they tried to reduce manufacturing costs, the latest versions have had reliability issues garnering only a 12 percentile in reliability ratings.

The problem WD has is maintaining a 10k production line for a relatively small market. They haven't made server inroads, which leaves just the geek squad market to go to.....and why buy a Raptor when games take up 12 or more GB leaving you with room for just 10 games.

The Raptors problem is that to spin that fast they only have one or two 75 GB platters. The new Cheetah 15k.6 I believe has 1-3 platters at about 150 GB per platter. With SCSI and Raptors having a presumably longer time to market because of manufacturing tolerances and testing, the Raptor is left in a position by the time it comes out, the other vendors have yet again increased density and they can get these newer / better drives out faster. 10K is only 38% faster than 7200 whereas 15k is 208% faster.

SATA is $0.24 / GB
Raptors are $1.16 / GB
SCSI is $1.87 / GB

So you pay 500% for a marginal increase in performance but than only 50% more for a doubling of performance. That's why they are struggling, they lost their niche....most people willing to pay $1.16 would pay $1.87. So in order to regain it, they either have to lower their price, tough give manufacturing tolerances for higher speeds or get faster.

Now we see a lot of talk about 2.5" drives. Because of huge increases in density, these drives are attractive cause vendors can put out the size people need on a smaller platter. Smaller platters mean ya ca spin em faster with less power and less heat.

http://www.eetimes.com/issue/bus/OEG20040219S0022
http://www.seagate.com/docs/pdf/datasheet/disc/ds_savvio_15k.pdf

So the economics have to be considered with regard to maintaining both 2.5 and 3.5 inch production lines and the reliability issues as well......will we soon see desktops offered with HD SLI with matched RAID 0 2.5 drives ? Maybe the new Raptor will be a 2.5".

Wow that about says it all, good to know. I am starting to wonder how fast SSD drivers will take over our standard mechanical drives 3.5 and 2.5 storage drives?

 

[Jpain]

2x 500gb 7200.11 and RAID 1

Mirrored set without parity. Provides fault tolerance from disk errors and single disk failure.
Increased read performance occurs when using a multi-threaded operating system that supports split seeks,
very small performance reduction when writing. Array continues to operate so long as at least one drive is functioning. SNIA definition.

 

[lonelypauly]

I've had a raptor since 2004 and I haven't noticed too much difference vs. my seagate 7200rpm...I notice faster OS installs, but thats about it.

 

[cranbers]

yeah, I had a raptor x 150 for about 8 months. Those things are very very loud, I have a 7200.11 and it is excellent. It is silent, fast and I have no complaints.

I knew it was about time for the raptor to go when the wife complained the computer was too loud. What is that noise coming from the computer? What is it doing? Comparison, I have to look at the activity light to see if the 7200.11 is actually working.

HDTach score is the only difference I ever noticed. Seagate is a winner all the way.

 

[bildo123]

I personally think it would be a waste. A nice 500GB 7200.11 seems like a much smarter investment, but that's just me.

Na, I'm right behind you. As of right now the money to performance ratio to other HDD is not that amazing compared to the Raptor. Not only that if you want to spend big money and actually get big performance, get a SDD.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Not only that if you want to send big money and actually get big performance, get a SDD.

Hybrid's were supposed to bridge the gap and give us a performance boost but the actual performance has been disheartening to date. And I have not seen SSD's performance in real life usage really come to bear. WHile perhaps interesting when compared against 2.5 " notebook drives, I didn't see any performance numbers here (other than access time) that I found exciting:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/08/13/flash_based_hard_drives_cometh/page12.html

 

[jay2tall]

I just got a Seagate Barracuda ES.2 250GB Drive and that thing is lightning FAST! I previously used a 7200.10 drive for my C partition and replaced it with this. HUGE difference in load times, I mean HUGE, very noticeable. I'd recommend that model over the Raptor any day. The cost is much lower and you get alot more storage. The 32MB Cache helps

 

[jay2tall]

May I also add to Systemlord's post, which may I add is great, We started using the 2.5 server drives at work and they are FANTASTICAL. I'm not saying for desktops they are quite there yet, but for server applications they are 10x better than the old SCSI320 drives. They take less power, are MUCH smaller, and you can fit about 10 in a server were previously only 6 would be the max. They also added alot to the Blade Infrastructure and allowed them to be smaller and take less power.

BLADES ROCK!