Velociraptor vs SSD

[sticks51412]

Newegg has it where you buy a Velociraptor 300 gig HDD and you get a thermal take 600 watt PSU for free after mail in rebates. I was thinking about buying two of these for my new system build and running them in raid 0. Are these still great drives for the price? The power supply isn't the best but I am in the working of building 3 systems (gaming, workstation, HTPC) and figured I could use the two free power supplies in two of the 3 systems at least for now.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.273741

 

[garm84]

Western-Digital Velociraptor are way over priced they are like 300 buxs and it not worth it.

 

[sticks51412]

I titled this wrong first of all sorry. These drives would be used as primary in a gaming system for just the OS and game installs. They are running 230 per drive

 

[sub mesa]

RAID0 has little benefit for gaming or boot performance.

Maybe you should consider an SSD instead, like Intel X25-M G2 80GB. It'll be a challenge to make the stuff fit though. But 2x 80GB in RAID0 would also be possible and still reasonably affordable. It'll be less space but alot higher performance. Your choice.

 

[sticks51412]

I don't want to go SSD price for size isn't there and won't be worth it for a few years according to people. I want to run a "traditional" HDD just trying to decide between Velociraptors and a standard 7200.

 

[sub mesa]

In that case go for a cheap 7200rpm HDD until you have money to buy a good SSD. No HDD can match the speed of SSDs the difference in performance is huge.

It won't really change in 2 years, HDDs will get bigger and the cost per GB drops even further. SSDs will still be very expensive per GB, but continue to kick butt while HDDs will always remain extremely slow regarding random I/O performance - which is what you need for a system drive.

Generally, a system drive should be an SSD, while a data/storage/download drive should be an HDD. That won't change in like 5 years time.

 

[garm84]

wow SSD is more better performance then HDD?? i need to check in to that. if thats the case i rather go ssd and use the hdd for just back up

 

[sticks51412]

The performance difference over a cheap HDD and a velociraptor is notible during bench marks is it not?

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Are these still great drives for the price?

Actually, they were never great drives for the price

2 300 GB Velociraptors in RAID 0 = $460

Intel 80 GB = $299
Seagate 7200.12 = $89

3.6 times the storage for 85% of the price

 

[cjl]

Actually, they were never great drives for the price

2 300 GB Velociraptors in RAID 0 = $460

Intel 80 GB = $299
Seagate 7200.12 = $89

3.6 times the storage for 85% of the price

Yes, but what if you have 400GB of applications and you want all of it to run as quickly as possible?

Honestly, the velociraptors are great drives. I have a pair of them, and I love them. No, they won't match an SSD for speed, but as an all around drive, they are certainly worthy of consideration.

 

[MARSOC_Operator]

Actually, they were never great drives for the price

2 300 GB Velociraptors in RAID 0 = $460

Intel 80 GB = $299
Seagate 7200.12 = $89

3.6 times the storage for 85% of the price

Where did you find a genuine Intel SSD for 299? The cheapest eBay price is 460 bucks. Some vendors are asking 800 USD for the same disk.

 

[aford10]

Actually, they were never great drives for the price

2 300 GB Velociraptors in RAID 0 = $460

Intel 80 GB = $299
Seagate 7200.12 = $89

3.6 times the storage for 85% of the price

I disagree. The velociraptor isn't going to match the SSD, but it's quicker than that seagate. You're talking RAID for the velociraptors, but not with the SSD/seagate. If the velocirators aren't in RAID, as the 2 you listed aren't, storage capacity isn't as drastic.

You wan't to talk about outrageous price on a drive. The SSDs are 3 - 4 times more per gig than the velociraptors.

 

[sminlal]

You wan't to talk about outrageous price on a drive. The SSDs are 3 - 4 times more per gig than the velociraptors.

SSD prices aren't about capacity, they're about performance. They can respond to I/O requests up to 100X faster than a hard drive.

 

[aford10]

^ The same exact thing used to be said about the velociraptors. Though, the price per gig wasn't nearly as crazy when the velociraptors first came out. And now, like all other hardware, something better has come out and the price dropped. The SSDs are a little over the top.

 

[Shadow703793]

Where did you find a genuine Intel SSD for 299? The cheapest eBay price is 460 bucks. Some vendors are asking 800 USD for the same disk.

http://www.tankguys.com/intel-x-25m-80gb-solid-state-disk.html
Too bad they don't have it in stock

As for reputation: http://www.anandtech.com/weblog/showpost.aspx?i=647
Look at the end of the page.

Also note: You can get the Kingston 80GB SSDNow M Series drive, which are based off of the Intel X25-M G2.
Review: http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/2720/kingston_ssdnow_m_series_80gb_ssd_w_intel_firmware_update/index.html
The rebadged Kingston G2 drives are easier to find and cheaper usually (at least right now). DO NOT confuse the M Series with Kingston's own SSDs.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

To all the questions :

1. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167016

2, The failure rate on the Raptors in the HD database at storagereview.com is 25%

3. 400 HGB of applications won't fit on two 300 GB raptors in RAID 0

4. RAID 0 does squat for gaming or application performance. See RAID 0 articles on storagereview.com (<2% improvement) and anandtech.

5. I wasn't specifically promotong the 7200.12 as any 500GB per platter drive will do. Relative performance depends on what you are doing and you should pick the drive that fits your needs.

7200.12 has a DTR of 152 to the Raptor's 116....one of the reasons I use them in an NAS which all the office systems back up to. They are also the quietest and lowest temp drives among their major competition.

If gaming is the goal, then the 7200.12 is less attractive ... then in the instance stated, it's not intended as a source drive. The HD is just a repository for the "games you are not playing atm".

C:\Windows OS
C:\Crysis
C:\Far Cry
C:\Sims2

D:\Game 1
D:\Game 2
D:\Game 3
.........................
.........................
D:\Game 26

When you done with Crysis, FarCry, Sims 2 for a while, simply cut and paste the folder from C:\ to D:\ ....... and paste on C:\whatever you are playing next. This may require installing each program to C:\ (SSD) 1st and then copying it to D:\

If that's "too much work" buy a bigger SSD.

Personally, HD speeds don't bother me.....my machines rarely shut off and even when I open the laptop each morning, I don't much care how long it takes to get to the desktop as it's always there by the time I get back from getting coffee.

 

[cjl]

3. 400 HGB of applications won't fit on two 300 GB raptors in RAID 0

That's an interesting claim, since 2 300GB Velociraptors in RAID 0 have a space of 558 GiB (600 decimal GB).

I'll agree that they aren't the best choice for all cases, but they certainly are faster than any 7200 I've tried (I haven't tried any current gen though - the fastest I've tried is a 1TB Caviar Black with 333GB platters), and the capacity is nice. I'm getting a 2TB Barracuda XT soon though, so I'll be able to do a quick speed comparison there and see if the velociraptors still win.

Of course, the best compromise is a tiered setup. I have a 3-tiered storage setup, with an X25-M 80GB for the OS, a pair of 300GB Velociraptors for apps (they used to be my OS drive, prior to the X25-M that I got a couple weeks ago), and a Caviar Black 1TB for storage of photos/music/docs/etc (soon to be supplemented with a 2TB Barracuda XT).

 

[cjl]

Where did you find a genuine Intel SSD for 299? The cheapest eBay price is 460 bucks. Some vendors are asking 800 USD for the same disk.

X25-M 80GB for $240:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/648465-REG/Intel_SSDSA2MH080G2C1_80GB_X25_M_Mainstream_SATA.html (ignore the 6-10 week statement - mine shipped in 4 days)

X25-M 160GB for $460:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/651825-REG/Intel_SSDSA2MH160G2R5_160GB_X25_M_Mainstream_SATA.html

It's been a long time since Intel SSDs have been >400 for the X25-M 80GB.

B&H is reputable too - my dad is quite into photography, and he's spent more than my computer is worth in a single go there before. They always come through with flying colors (it's also where I got my X25-M).

 

[sub mesa]

In eurozone webprices are about EUR185-195 for the Intel X25-M 80GB G2, which is very decent. Not much more expensive than other - sometimes crappy - SSDs, so the choice is a no-brainer here.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

That's an interesting claim, since 2 300GB Velociraptors in RAID 0 have a space of 558 GiB (600 decimal GB)..

Looking at the 12 boxes her eat home, I average about 10 to 1 for data to program ratio.

But even so...... I'm thinking 40 Gigs for OS, temp and page files, 400 GB of programs that's already 440, leaving only a bit more than 100 Gigs for all the data created in those programs, your games, photos, movies and music library.

 

[MARSOC_Operator]

Looking at the 12 boxes her eat home, I average about 10 to 1 for data to program ratio.

But even so...... I'm thinking 40 Gigs for OS, temp and page files, 400 GB of programs that's already 440, leaving only a bit more than 100 Gigs for all the data created in those programs, your games, photos, movies and music library.

I think 40GB is a gross exaggeration for that data, 10GB is plenty. Heck, I'm using exactly 4.37GB for that...

 

[cjl]

Looking at the 12 boxes her eat home, I average about 10 to 1 for data to program ratio.

But even so...... I'm thinking 40 Gigs for OS, temp and page files, 400 GB of programs that's already 440, leaving only a bit more than 100 Gigs for all the data created in those programs, your games, photos, movies and music library.

The smart solution is to get a fairly cheap 1TB drive for music/photos/movies/music, since it definitely does not need the speed. That's what I did - I initially built my system with just the pair of velociraptors, but I quickly added the 1TB caviar black for additional storage, while keeping OS and apps (and nothing else) on the velociraptors. Of course, I'm running out of space on the TB now, so that's why I'm getting another 2 TB of storage soon (I still have another 200GB left on the Velociraptors though), so I definitely agree that most people will have more files than apps.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

I think 40GB is a gross exaggeration for that data, 10GB is plenty. Heck, I'm using exactly 4.37GB for that...

I didn't say 40 GB for data....I said 40 GB for OS (Win7 Ultimate) temp and page files (which of course includes all software on the MoBo CD.....default location for all email data (and attachments) is on C:\remember.

How much you keep depends on your age and what you do. A 14 yerar old who just plays WoW won't have much data....a person with years of family photos, movies, hobbies etc will have much more.

As for "data" .....I have been using desktop PC's since 1984 .... 1973 if ya count mainframes.....I have built up a significant data library in those years but no where close to my son who is minoring in photography (over 85 GB) in college and has a significant music library....467 GB to be exact.

 

[sminlal]

How much you keep depends on your age and what you do. A 14 yerar old who just plays WoW won't have much data....a person with years of family photos, movies, hobbies etc will have much more.

Personally, I suspect a lot of 14-year-olds have terabytes of downloaded music and video files, while lots of staid oldtimers are accumulating literally dozens of e-mails...

 

[aford10]

and porn.