Western Digital VelociRaptor WD1000DHTZ Review

[shqtth]

I have had many problems with SSDs. a lot of data corruption issues.

No problems with Velociraptors. I need a fast reliable drive.

Yes SSDs are a lot faster, but my data is important.

Now I could always run a SSD cache and have best of both worlds.

Don't let random 4k performance fool you, yes it happens but not all the time. Windows has been designed to load and save things linearly on the hard drive. Its only when programs go crazy on startup or running more then one program at the same time random becomes more important. Systems these days have a lot of ram and everything gets cached, so all I need is fast access to my data.


Data recovery on SSDs is a bitch. The drive saves everything fragmented, encrypted, and compressed if sandforce. So good luck getting your data back. And with TRIM and garbage collection, dat is hard to recover if deleted by mistake. Also some drives have corruption issues, and bugs crop up. I seen SSDs that have corrupt flash so they stop working requiring a secure format just because garbage collection somehow messed up. Also I had SSDs where data was lost and the drive had to be wiped has it had 1000+ errors in the fire system. The problem is we have to have fancy wear leveling and cache the reads/writes, and a lot of other tricks to make things fast or help reduce wear on the flash, that aids to data corruption issues, and number 1 issue is MLC flash and soon to be TLC flash !. Everything should be SLC flash, but they are selling SSDs with MLC/TLC just to justify charing more for SLC. If everything was SLC, then pries would come down and if you think about it, less processing is needed, speeds are way higher 3-4x+, and there is 100000 write cycles vs 3000, and better data integrity, all that is not worth loosing just to gain 2x more space. MLC/TLC flash is just a waist of time.

I run a web server and there is no way I will use an SSD.

 

[shqtth]

Would be nice in the future if WD came out with a hybrid version of the Velociraptor with at least 16GB or 64GB SLC flash.

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]shqtth[/nom]I have had many problems with SSDs. a lot of data corruption issues.No problems with Velociraptors. I need a fast reliable drive.Yes SSDs are a lot faster, but my data is important.Now I could always run a SSD cache and have best of both worlds.Don't let random 4k performance fool you, yes it happens but not all the time. Windows has been designed to load and save things linearly on the hard drive. Its only when programs go crazy on startup or running more then one program at the same time random becomes more important. Systems these days have a lot of ram and everything gets cached, so all I need is fast access to my data.Data recovery on SSDs is a bitch. The drive saves everything fragmented, encrypted, and compressed if sandforce. So good luck getting your data back. And with TRIM and garbage collection, dat is hard to recover if deleted by mistake. Also some drives have corruption issues, and bugs crop up. I seen SSDs that have corrupt flash so they stop working requiring a secure format just because garbage collection somehow messed up. Also I had SSDs where data was lost and the drive had to be wiped has it had 1000+ errors in the fire system. The problem is we have to have fancy wear leveling and cache the reads/writes, and a lot of other tricks to make things fast or help reduce wear on the flash, that aids to data corruption issues, and number 1 issue is MLC flash and soon to be TLC flash !. Everything should be SLC flash, but they are selling SSDs with MLC/TLC just to justify charing more for SLC. If everything was SLC, then pries would come down and if you think about it, less processing is needed, speeds are way higher 3-4x+, and there is 100000 write cycles vs 3000, and better data integrity, all that is not worth loosing just to gain 2x more space. MLC/TLC flash is just a waist of time.I run a web server and there is no way I will use an SSD.[/citation]

If data integrity is even more necessary than a Samsung 830, Intel SandForce SSD, or a Crucial M4 can provide for, then you use RAID for improved reliability, plain and simple. No hard drive is so infallible, not even raptors, that if data integritiy is truly important, you shouldn't use RAID.

If you accidentally delete something for garbage collection to take care of, then not only must you send it to the recycling bin, but also delete it a second time, unless you don't use the recycling bin. Not using the recycling bin seems rather stupid if your data is so important. Heck, everything should be backed up to minimize the already minuscule risk of losing something.

It doesn't matter that SLC is better if it is too expensive to be afforded. MLC is denser than SLC and that's an unavoidable fact that will make it always be more substantially expensive than a comparable MLC solution. Furthermore, MLC is not the problem. The flash of an SSD rarely ever fails. If something fails., it is almost always caused by controller/firmware problems. Several modern SSD lines are much more reliable than most hard drives are. Go ahead and compare the average hard drive to a Samsung 830 or a Crucial M4.

Compare an SLC drive that costs over $2 per GB to an MLC dive that costs under $1 per GB. Sure, the SLC drive is probably better with the same or a better controller, but it can be more than twice as expensive. It might be able to go down to a little under twice as expensive, but it would almost always be the difference between paying say $100 for a 120/128GB drive and paying about $200 for a 120/128GB drive. Faster or not, that's more than most people are going to pay for that capacity. Heck, a 180/192GB model could cost more than the 1TB Raptor does.

Beyond that, there already are SLC SSDs. If you think that you don't mind a price hike for it, then go ahead and choose them over consumer SSDs. Any web server is unlikely to truly benefit from an SSD anyways unless its storage is a huge bottle-neck, so you not using them doesn't matter unless that is causing problems.

Also, MLC isn't necessarily even as *unreliable* as it is (which is still pretty reliable). Look at Intel's 710 series SSDs and their eMLC can be exponentially more reliable than even Intel's MLC used in their consumer drives.

As for random I/O performance not being important, I guess that you are ignoring the fact that even using two storage-intensive programs at once can bring a hard drive to it knees whereas an SSD can actually speed up despite already being several times to thousands of times faster than an HDD, depending on the workload. Even in sequential workloads, an SSD can be so much faster than a hard drive that a person with an SSD in their computer (especially a new one) could be very uncomfortable with a computer that lacks one. There are a lot of workloads that can have a lot of random throughput that would make any hard drive go down into the single digits of MB/s or even lower and modern, high quality consumer SSDs can be in the hundreds of MB/s in the same workloads.

 

[eddieroolz]

This drive is not meant for the regular consumers like us. SSDs are more than sufficient for us, in fact.

The Velociraptor, as ojas mentioned, is for those people that perform ridiculous amount of I/O that is sufficiently sequential that the nature of a spinning disk is not detrimental. The part about ridiculous amount of I/O refers to the fact that SSD cells will eventually wear out, especially under these conditions.

 

[DjEaZy]

... hmmm... a SSD for system, VelociRaptor for storage and 2Tb or more for 5200 RPM for backup... ideal...

 

[Slothy]

I think the arguements about application are missing the point.

Yes, this is a niche product.

Yes, there are other options that could likely rival or exceed it's [performance/capacity]-per-dollar offering.

This is their flagship. It is designed to post big numbers, kick some ass, keep their position as a brand, and maybe as a first-wave production testbed for some new features or technology - either in manufacturing it, or available to the end user. Cost to actually design and build these units for a company the size of Western Digital probably doesn't even get on the map. Like a celebrity endorsement for GM or Ford, it might cost them a couple million - but that's not even a drop in the bucket to them.

Intel still makes their i7-X models, they serve the same purpose, and I don't see any more use for them than this flagship (maybe even less).

 

[blazorthon]

I think the arguements about application are missing the point.

Yes, this is a niche product.

Yes, there are other options that could likely rival or exceed it's [performance/capacity]-per-dollar offering.

This is their flagship. It is designed to post big numbers, kick some ass, keep their position as a brand, and maybe as a first-wave production testbed for some new features or technology - either in manufacturing it, or available to the end user. Cost to actually design and build these units for a company the size of Western Digital probably doesn't even get on the map. Like a celebrity endorsement for GM or Ford, it might cost them a couple million - but that's not even a drop in the bucket to them.

Intel still makes their i7-X models, they serve the same purpose, and I don't see any more use for them than this flagship (maybe even less).

i7s serve a purpose as the top-end CPUs you can get from Intel without going to Xeon. A lot of people use them for business applications that depend on top performance in some way. They're also often used by the smaller enthusiast market and some aspects of at least some of them are designed for that.

These VelociRaptors are a little more difficult to place. They can have their place as high-capacity, high-speed hard drives, but RAID is more affordable with higher capacity, performance, and lower prices for that. They can be said to be great for lower capacity, high performance needs, but eMLC and SLC SSDs have that niche cornered. I see no purpose for them where there aren't superior options in every way.

 

[Andy Sheepleton]

I am awfully late to this party but.. SSDs are great for static data. For data where there is a lot of write/re-writeactivity SSDs have a limit on the number of re-writes that you can do before they are done, at least in MLC drives. I see an awful lot of posters comparing this price point to MLC SSD drives. For implementations where the data changes a lot, the lifespan of the SSD is going to be a problem. Using a SSD for the OS and more static data and the HDD for more static data will give you good performance and a long lifespan. The VelociRaptor blows other HDD drives out of the water, and works beautifully with data that changes a lot.

 

[blazorthon]

I am awfully late to this party but.. SSDs are great for static data. For data where there is a lot of write/re-writeactivity SSDs have a limit on the number of re-writes that you can do before they are done, at least in MLC drives. I see an awful lot of posters comparing this price point to MLC SSD drives. For implementations where the data changes a lot, the lifespan of the SSD is going to be a problem. Using a SSD for the OS and more static data and the HDD for more static data will give you good performance and a long lifespan. The VelociRaptor blows other HDD drives out of the water, and works beautifully with data that changes a lot.

It ain't easy to reach the max read/writes in an SSD in any small amount of time unless you go for a TLC drive. MLC is still currently plenty. You'd need to do a ridiculously huge number of writes and at that point, one must think that VelociRaptor still wouldn't be able to compare to multiple far cheaper per GB decent hard drives in RAID in reliability nor performance.

 

[Jason Woodson]

Here' the issue, SSD's aren't designed for 100 percent load and to last long doing it. Life expectancy is only a shocking 3 years. Whereas a raptor is warranty for 5 and is designed for 100 percent duty cycle during the course of its life. So for longevity Raptor wins. Next You can get really close to the performance of an SSD if 4 of these drives are in raid 0 on a good raid card and the fact you get more space means the the raptor becomes a very good contender against SSD. I have a Samsung 840 pro 128gb and I love my raptors over my samsung as I get better reliability with heavy loads, nearly SSD speeds, and more space to boot.

 

[Jason Woodson]

Here' the issue, SSD's aren't designed for 100 percent load and to last long doing it. Life expectancy is only a shocking 3 years. Whereas a raptor is warranty for 5 and is designed for 100 percent duty cycle during the course of its life. So for longevity Raptor wins. Next You can get really close to the performance of an SSD if 4 of these drives are in raid 0 on a good raid card and the fact you get more space means the the raptor becomes a very good contender against SSD. I have a Samsung 840 pro 128gb and I love my raptors over my samsung as I get better reliability with heavy loads, nearly SSD speeds, and more space to boot.