VelociRaptor vs Seagate 1TB?

[someguynamedmatt]

I was surfing through NewEgg and PassMark.com today for an actual hard drive to put in my system instead of a little 2.5" notebook drive I've been using. I've always been looking at a 150gb VelociRaptor, but when I searched it in PassMark's performance database, it came up that the Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 (ST3500418AS) actually performs better than the VelociRaptor. Is this true? I know that it probably takes storage size into consideration - 1000 vs 150 gigabytes, but all I'm looking for here is speed/performance over size. I probably know that answer to this, but which one is a faster drive overall? And is it worth getting a VelociRaptor over the Barracuda 7200.12?

 

[cjl]

The Velociraptor will be faster for boot and program loading, no matter what PassMark says. It won't be as fast as an SSD, but it will definitely make a difference.

 

[sminlal]

cjl is right - the Velociraptor is better for booting and program loading because it has a faster access time - the natural result of it's higher spin rate. If you're looking for better performance for those kinds of tasks, it's the drive to choose.

Other drives may have a higher transfer rate than the Velociraptor, but that's only important if you need to access large files quickly (i.e., copying them or using programs such as video or photo editors that need to read or write them quickly).

 

[someguynamedmatt]

I thought so...
I've got another question, then. Since nobody answered my last two topics about it, how fast would the Velociraptor be compared to an average SCSI Ultra160, 320, or maybe even a Fibre Channel drive? And how is it compared to an SSD?
Lol, sorry for all the questions... I've been looking for some good storage recently, and am debating between all the different ways to go...
Much appreciated
-Matt

 

[someguynamedmatt]

Man... what is it about SCSI and Fibre Channel drives that make all of my topics die? I've barely gotten a single view since I said that...

 

[guggas]

maybe people don't know what they are..?

 

[someguynamedmatt]

Not sure... it's one heck of a conversation killer, I'll tell you that much... it's tempting to go back and get rid of that...

How about this: How much of a performance difference is there between a VelociRaptor 150gb and a 64gb Intel X25, or OCZ Vertex? Any thoughts?

 

[guggas]

I'm no expert but I have heard that the solid state drives are WAY faster than the Raptor in read times, so you will boot and load programs way faster. However the write speeds are way slower, so installing programs take forever. To me personally I thin a decent 7200 rpm drive like the Samsung f3 or the WD caviar black is the best buy. Its not quite as fast as the velociraptor but its not that big of a difference and its way cheaper. To me the SSD's are just too expensive unless you just don't care about money.

 

[someguynamedmatt]

Yeah, I feel the same way about SSDs as you do. I don't need the storage capacity to make seven copies of my entire system, either, so I guess speed's all I'm looking for here. And massive HDD speed with an average capacity has VelociRaptor written all over it.

 

[sminlal]

There's nothing all that special about SCSI or Fibre Channel drives. They still use the same basic underlying mechanism, but since they're targeted at the enterprise market they often have firmware that's optimized for greater reliability (more robust ECC information) and better command queuing. Don't expect them to operate significantly faster just because of the different interconnection, the only significant performance benefit would be if you bought a drive with a higher spin rate such as a 15K rpm drive.

SSDs are by far the fastest drive type currently available. They are expensive on a cost/byte basis, but cheap on a cost/IOs-per-second basis. The key is to use them for a relatively few performance-critical files. The most common way to use them is to buy one large enough to hold the OS and applications and use a conventional hard drive for everything else.

 

[someguynamedmatt]

Yeah, SSDs dominate the speed market right now, just because they're a new(er) technology that Hard Disks just can't match at the moment.
I'm aware that a Fibre Channel drive uses the same basic mechanism as a regular HDD, but wouldn't a 15k drive, or maybe 2 15k drives in dual channel, have a significant advantage over the average 7400rpm SATA drive? And I'm not sure exactly how much, but wouldn't a fibre channel cable offer some, if any, performance bonus over a SATA cable?
Man, I'm asking a lot of questions in this topic...

 

[cjl]

The 15k FC drive will beat the 7200rpm SATA drive, but only because of the 15k spin speed, not because of the interface.

 

[sminlal]

> wouldn't a 15k drive, or maybe 2 15k drives in dual channel, have a significant advantage over the average 7400rpm SATA drive?

Yes - as I said: "Don't expect them to operate significantly faster just because of the different interconnection, the only significant performance benefit would be if you bought a drive with a higher spin rate such as a 15K rpm drive."


> wouldn't a fibre channel cable offer some, if any, performance bonus over a SATA cable?

No - as I said: "Don't expect them to operate significantly faster just because of the different interconnection, the only significant performance benefit would be if you bought a drive with a higher spin rate such as a 15K rpm drive. "

SAS and Fibre channel address enterprise-scale storage needs - you can create SANs (Storage Area Networks) with scores of discs and provide high aggregate performance to dozens of servers. For a few drives in a desktop this type of interconnection technology doesn't really buy you anything.

 

[someguynamedmatt]

Man... you've got a good way to make all of my questions look awfully stupid...
And I am aware of how FC and SAS arrays work; I was just hoping to get a number on what'd you could push out of a system like that.

You're right, though... there's no way that it would be worth it to buy and set up a FC/SAS System like that just for a desktop. I'd be a whole lot better just buying an SSD.

That reminds me of another question. You guys don't know of any performance benchmarks anyone's done to compare an Intel X25 or OCZ Vertex to a WD Velociraptor, do you?
I've only found one, but it was done back when SSDs were first released, pretty much. Tom's Hardware's RAID-0 benchmarks don't really help much, either...

 

[cjl]

Nope, but I could run some if you had a specific one in mind (I have an X25-M G2 80GB as my boot drive, and a pair of 300GB Velociraptors in RAID 0 as my application drive).

 

[sminlal]

> You guys don't know of any performance benchmarks anyone's done to compare an Intel X25 or OCZ Vertex to a WD Velociraptor, do you?

Here you go: http://anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3631&p=22

 

[someguynamedmatt]

Wow, you've got an answer for everything. I guess that's why you're here, though...
You guessed it, I've got more questions. I'm really making sure of what I'm buying before I upgrade to an SSD...

I'm debating between either an X25-M G2 80GB, a Corsair Reactor, or a Corsair Nova right now. Any benchmarks on these, or better suggestions? I'm looking for anything from 64-128gb and under $200 for a boot drive...

All the help is much appreciated, by the way.

 

[cjl]

I'm not familiar with those Corsair drives, but unless they have a SandForce controller, I'd get the intel drive.

 

[sminlal]

I'm in the same boat as cjl - not familiar with the Corsairs and would probably stick with the Intel.

 

[someguynamedmatt]

I just went the corsair website, and found this:

The Reactor Series, including 60GB and 120GB drive capacities, is built using the new JMicron JMF612 controller. This second-generation controller from JMicron incorporates 128MB of DDR2 cache memory for stutter-free performance. The 120GB Reactor Series SSD delivers speeds of up to 250MB/s read and 170MB/s write, while the 60GB Reactor Series SSD features speeds up to 250MB/s read and 110 MB/s write.

The Nova Series is built using the popular Indilinx Barefoot controller with 64MB of cache memory, and is offered in drive sizes of 64GB and 128GB. The 128GB Nova Series SSD is able to achieve speeds of up to 270MB/second read and 190MB/second write, while the 64GB Nova Series SSD delivers speeds up to 270MB/s read and 130MB/s write.

Now you know.

I'm not sure about the JMicron controller... anyone know anything about it? The Nova sounds like a fairly good drive for the price, though. I've always liked Corsair, especially because of their quality PSU's and RAM. I don't see why their SSD's would be any different, and they have great customer support.

 

[cjl]

The Jmicron controller isn't that great. Indilinx is better, but Intel is still the way to go. The only other controller that is comparable to Intel's for performance is the SandForce controller, which is not used in those Corsair drives.

 

[someguynamedmatt]

This topic's probably becoming a moderators worst nightmare...

In that case, what SSD's do use the SandForce controller? Call me a newb, but I havn't even heard of it before now.

I wish i could give out about ten 'best answers' for this right now...

 

[sminlal]

In that case, what SSD's do use the SandForce controller?

I can't give you a definitive list, but here's a later Anandtech review that includes some of them: http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3751&p=3

It sounds to me like you need to Google "AnandTech SSD" and spend a bit of time looking through their excellent reviews.

 

[someguynamedmatt]

It sounds to me like you need to Google "AnandTech SSD" and spend a bit of time looking through their excellent reviews.

Probably true, but I figured that you guys here at Toms Hardware would know a little more on a consumer level than some of the guys at the review sites. I mean, you work with endless streams of questions like me pretty much every day...

I'll take your advice and go look through those, though...

 

[sminlal]

We're happy to answer your questions! But the Anandtech SSD reviews really are very good and they give you a lot of background that anyone contemplating a purchase of one would be well advised to understand.