Western Digital VelociRaptor WD1000DHTZ Review

[kevin83]

The point of the drive is to get moderate performance out of 1 terabyte of storage in one drive. It would take $700 to build an ssd raid array of the same size. Just because the ssd array would have signifcantly better speed doesn't mean people are willing to risk the increased failure rate and spend the extra $400. I do agree though that it's bogus to use these as performance large-cap storage when you could buy 3 caviar blue 1tb drives and raid those together for triple the storage and better performance.

 

[nforce4max]

May as well buy a cheap SSD for good random 4 and a pair of decent 1tb or better mechanical drives for raid 0 for that much. A SSD is good for those who still have to maintain a page file or swap when running certain apps that use more memory than what the system has equipped ram.

 

[nforce4max]

[citation][nom]caedenv[/nom]There are no 'cheap' 1TB SSDs on the market yet. Even raiding 4 256GB SSDs would cost much more than this.However, there are plenty of other reasons that make this drive completely useless.1) Noise; seriously, I use 7200rpm drives in my editing rig and they are way too loud (the loudest thing in my system) and I am considering moving up to either higher quality/quieter 7200rpm drives, or moving to some near-silent 5900rpm drives for my bulk storage needs. Offloading these drives to a file server in another room will bottleneck the drive, so you would be better off with much larger (and cheaper) drives anyways. Anywho, noise alone makes this drive unacceptable for most workstations, especially when working with media where audio is involved.2) Capacity; For a single video project (even a fairly long lightly compressed one) this is plenty big, but so would a 512GB drive which would trounce this drive on about every point possible. For bulk storage it is extremely fast, but 1TB is very small for a storage drive these days (I have over 1TB of files myself and I do not do 'big' projects, and have not yet moved my DVD/BluRay collection to the server yet), and again the network speed for a file server is going to make the extra performance of these drives trivial at best compared to the space gained by using larger slower drives.3) Heat; Yes, the temps on the drive were good... but it is bolted to a giant slab of metal! How hot would a normal HDD be if they had a giant metal tumor on them? All of that heat produced goes somewhere, and it has to be expelled from your case properly, especially if using multiples of these drives which would get quite toasty. Personally I am waiting for some broken Velociraptors to come into my work just so I can use the housing as an SSD adapter now that would be sweet! Completely overkill... but sweet!4) Price; at 3x the cost of a normal drive of the same capacity you could easily RAID 4-6 drives for much larger capacity, or much more redundancy (likely both) and have similar throughput to a pair of these drives (granted velocaraptor drives would still hold a seek time advantage). If the price comes down a bit when it is not 'shiny and new', or for some odd reason you only have space for a single drive then it could make sense, but for most people, and even most professionals, this would not make sense.5) Physical size; While the size is competitive in the consumer market, most of the professional market has long moved on to 10-15K 2.5" SAS drives that dont need a heat tumor to cool them. Yes, these drives are a bit more expensive, but they are enterprise class drives with long warranties, and SCSI functionality. In a consumer market this drive would fit fine, but be out-priced by the competition; In the prosumer market it would fit fine, but make more sense to use a larger RAID with more redundancy; In a professional/server market the drive would simply not fit. With really makes it a head-scratcher as to who this beautiful and powerful drive is supposed to be marketed to...In the end it does have a nitche market today for those who simply do not care about system noise and need bulk fast local storage in a 1-2 drive configuration. But within a year we will start to see 1TB 'civilian' (read OCZ) or 'prosumer' (read Crucial) SSDs on the market, and SSD prices next year should be nearing the $0.5/GB price range (possibly less than that after rebate or for cheap drives), and we will see much larger 2TB SSDs available on the extreme high end (though for astronomical prices). The drives out next year may still be a little more expensive than this, but with so many advantages professionals would be stupid to not pay the little extra for the massive benefits, and a year after that then they will be right in line or cheaper on a $/GB basis.[/citation]

I would have passed up this drive anyway for SAS and a good controller. As for noise well it is down to personal taste and if one is doing any audio recording in addition to normal editing. In reality many of us get by on rather cheap drives and lower end machines than what most professionals can afford. Don't have $10,000 to $15,000+ to dump on a decent workstation and some of us like to enjoy some gaming when off hours.

 

[mubin]

still running 7200rpm, 3gb/s hdd. Feeling good. Though slow start up is some game but that ok.

 

[CaedenV]

[citation][nom]nforce4max[/nom]I would have passed up this drive anyway for SAS and a good controller. As for noise well it is down to personal taste and if one is doing any audio recording in addition to normal editing. In reality many of us get by on rather cheap drives and lower end machines than what most professionals can afford. Don't have $10,000 to $15,000+ to dump on a decent workstation and some of us like to enjoy some gaming when off hours.[/citation]
Sure, and that is exactly my point. People like you and me work on either a bunch of single drives, or at most a little Raid 1 if we have some good for-pay gigs that we cannot afford to loose. Personally I run a 240GB SSD for system and scratch disc, 500GB for my documents and personal files, and then a 1TB RAID1 for my projects. one of my 1TB drives is getting up there in age (~6 years or so) and is painfully slow, and yet when editing I still have enough throughput (~160MBps) to edit HD content just fine, and push my i7 CPU to ~80-90% load. You simply do not need lost of super fast drives to work a CPU to death, just a few cheap quiet drives works just fine. I would like my seek time to be a little faster so that it does not choke on music videos with a lot of layered video and quick transitions, but in reality this is so rare as to not be a major issue, and if I were to invest in some much newer cheap drives then even that would not be an issue.

So it does not work for people like us, and it does not work for the people on the high end, so I am just confused as to who the drive is aimed at.

 

[nforce4max]

[citation][nom]caedenv[/nom]Sure, and that is exactly my point. People like you and me work on either a bunch of single drives, or at most a little Raid 1 if we have some good for-pay gigs that we cannot afford to loose. Personally I run a 240GB SSD for system and scratch disc, 500GB for my documents and personal files, and then a 1TB RAID1 for my projects. one of my 1TB drives is getting up there in age (~6 years or so) and is painfully slow, and yet when editing I still have enough throughput (~160MBps) to edit HD content just fine, and push my i7 CPU to ~80-90% load. You simply do not need lost of super fast drives to work a CPU to death, just a few cheap quiet drives works just fine. I would like my seek time to be a little faster so that it does not choke on music videos with a lot of layered video and quick transitions, but in reality this is so rare as to not be a major issue, and if I were to invest in some much newer cheap drives then even that would not be an issue.So it does not work for people like us, and it does not work for the people on the high end, so I am just confused as to who the drive is aimed at.[/citation]

I think that this drive is aimed at people how buy things like this as a "status symbol" like what rich people do diamond incrusted junk or gold plated iPads.

 

[Guest]

> what was already the fastest 3.5" disk drive available

Correction: fastest SATA 3.5" disk drive available. Enterprise 15k rpm SAS drives are way faster than raptors.

 

[g-unit1111]

[citation][nom]Smeg45[/nom]Why would I want an SSD in a gaming system? I need bulk capacity and this offers it in a fast package.[/citation]

That is why most people recommend a second, slower HD in addition to the SSD. The cost per GB sometimes isn't justifiable and that's a good point. But when you pair a small SSD with a large HD, the cost per GB becomes justifiable again, and from my experience there really isn't a lot of difference between 10K RPM and 7200 RPM when you have an SSD as your primary. If you install your Steam folder and any other games you want to play on the same system, you won't notice much of a difference in storage performance.

 

[verbalizer]

I catch certified refurbished VelcoiRaptors on eBay all the time for all uses, RAID0 and boot drives, also use them for Steam. But buying new nowadays, not logical..

 

[Wisecracker]

[citation][nom]Draven35[/nom]"Combining high performance and high reliability, the disk should be well-suited for applications like professional office machines, rendering boxes, high-end video and picture editing, small servers, and enthusiast-oriented desktops in need of a fast hard disk."Rendering boxes don't need fast hard disks, they read data and save their frames over the network to your workstation or server."We measured the minimum sequential write performance of the new VelociRaptor at 114 MB/s, which can be an absolutely critical number in applications that rely on fast write performance, like digital recording of multiple high-definition video streams."uncompressed 10-bit YUV (4:2:2 video):1280x720 @ 60p - 141 MB/s1920x1080 @ 24PsF - 127 MB/s1920x1080 @ 60i - 158 MB/suncompressed RGB (4:4:4 video):1280x720 @ 60p - 211 MB/s1920x1080 @ 24PsF - 190 MB/s1920x1080 @ 60i - 237MB/sThese drives are still not enough to write one stream of uncompressed HD, much less multiple streams.[/citation]

Wrong size *B* .... it's bits, not Bytes.

Only missed it by 1000x

 

[Wisecracker]

Actually, it's 10x .....

But, who's counting?

 

[dragonsqrrl]

[citation][nom]Wisecracker[/nom]Actually, it's 10x .....But, who's counting?[/citation]
... actually it's 8x.

But ya, I don't think anyone's counting.

 

[verbalizer]

Actually, it's 10x .....

But, who's counting?

I see you...
but do you see me.?

 

[jacobdrj]

[citation][nom]dragonsqrrl[/nom]Damn that's a fast drive. Would make a great high performance scratch disk. The market for these drives has certainly shrunk in the past few years, and I doubt many enthusiasts and gamers would even consider buying one anymore. It's value is limited to those who need more performance out of their storage devices than your typical 7200RPM 3.5" drive can deliver. Production pros working with large volumes of high res assets and complex project files would probably see the most benefit from a drive like this.[/citation]

I have tried Velociraptors at various times as scratch disks. In general, negligible performance enhancements. SSD and more RAM are the way to go. These drives are certainly an improvement over 7200 RPM Disks, but really, only when you include RAID 0, and still don't hold a candle to SSD...

 

[signothorn]

[citation][nom]Smeg45[/nom]Why would I want an SSD in a gaming system? I need bulk capacity and this offers it in a fast package.[/citation]

In a desktop, it may make good sense. I have a 128gb SSD for the o/s and a 600gb raptor for games/progs and video editing. Works well for me.

 

[Draven35]

[citation][nom]Wisecracker[/nom]Wrong size *B* .... it's bits, not Bytes.Only missed it by 1000x[/citation]

Wrong. Those HD data rates are in MEGABYTES per second, data taken from the Blackmagic Decklink (a HD-SDI I/O card) manual. Uncompressed NTSC SD is 21 MB/s (MEGABYTES per second) in and of itself and is thus higher data rate than your theoretical megaBIT rate.

 

[Draven35]

Citation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncompressed_video

 

[A Bad Day]

This, plus SSD.

 

[alidan]

[citation][nom]Draven35[/nom]I seriously doubt it was either 1 TB or 1 PB... probably more like 1 GB...[/citation]
it was a number that at the time wasn't possible in a home computer, so i know it was at least 1tb, 1pb is probably out of the question considering what would have been needed at the time to get to that much space. [citation][nom]caedenv[/nom]There are no 'cheap' 1TB SSDs on the market yet. Even raiding 4 256GB SSDs would cost much more than this.However, there are plenty of other reasons that make this drive completely useless.1) Noise; seriously, I use 7200rpm drives in my editing rig and they are way too loud (the loudest thing in my system) and I am considering moving up to either higher quality/quieter 7200rpm drives, or moving to some near-silent 5900rpm drives for my bulk storage needs. Offloading these drives to a file server in another room will bottleneck the drive, so you would be better off with much larger (and cheaper) drives anyways. Anywho, noise alone makes this drive unacceptable for most workstations, especially when working with media where audio is involved.2) Capacity; For a single video project (even a fairly long lightly compressed one) this is plenty big, but so would a 512GB drive which would trounce this drive on about every point possible. For bulk storage it is extremely fast, but 1TB is very small for a storage drive these days (I have over 1TB of files myself and I do not do 'big' projects, and have not yet moved my DVD/BluRay collection to the server yet), and again the network speed for a file server is going to make the extra performance of these drives trivial at best compared to the space gained by using larger slower drives.3) Heat; Yes, the temps on the drive were good... but it is bolted to a giant slab of metal! How hot would a normal HDD be if they had a giant metal tumor on them? All of that heat produced goes somewhere, and it has to be expelled from your case properly, especially if using multiples of these drives which would get quite toasty. Personally I am waiting for some broken Velociraptors to come into my work just so I can use the housing as an SSD adapter now that would be sweet! Completely overkill... but sweet!4) Price; at 3x the cost of a normal drive of the same capacity you could easily RAID 4-6 drives for much larger capacity, or much more redundancy (likely both) and have similar throughput to a pair of these drives (granted velocaraptor drives would still hold a seek time advantage). If the price comes down a bit when it is not 'shiny and new', or for some odd reason you only have space for a single drive then it could make sense, but for most people, and even most professionals, this would not make sense.5) Physical size; While the size is competitive in the consumer market, most of the professional market has long moved on to 10-15K 2.5" SAS drives that dont need a heat tumor to cool them. Yes, these drives are a bit more expensive, but they are enterprise class drives with long warranties, and SCSI functionality. In a consumer market this drive would fit fine, but be out-priced by the competition; In the prosumer market it would fit fine, but make more sense to use a larger RAID with more redundancy; In a professional/server market the drive would simply not fit. With really makes it a head-scratcher as to who this beautiful and powerful drive is supposed to be marketed to...In the end it does have a nitche market today for those who simply do not care about system noise and need bulk fast local storage in a 1-2 drive configuration. But within a year we will start to see 1TB 'civilian' (read OCZ) or 'prosumer' (read Crucial) SSDs on the market, and SSD prices next year should be nearing the $0.5/GB price range (possibly less than that after rebate or for cheap drives), and we will see much larger 2TB SSDs available on the extreme high end (though for astronomical prices). The drives out next year may still be a little more expensive than this, but with so many advantages professionals would be stupid to not pay the little extra for the massive benefits, and a year after that then they will be right in line or cheaper on a $/GB basis.[/citation]

take into account a situation that you would need a 10k drive, and anything else wont cut it. when you thing of what you could need that for, the price difference of a 300$ 1tb drive, or a 600$ ssd raid, or a 700$ ssd raid with 1tb redundant space, even the higher price becomes reasonable due to how much raw speed you gain.

 

[Draven35]

[citation][nom]alidan[/nom]it was a number that at the time wasn't possible in a home computer, so i know it was at least 1tb, 1pb is probably out of the question considering what would have been needed at the time to get to that much space. [/citation]

Maybe it was built in hi-res segments and if the segments were all loaded at once it would be 1 TB... maybe. You can't really build a complete model that no computer available can load into RAM- keep in mind ILM's desktop machines are desktop PCs running Linux, not anything special or spectacular.

 

[JOSHSKORN]

I know this would be totally unfair, but just for the hell of it, I'd like to see how this product compares to SSDs. Just looking at the graphs, I only see HDDs, I believe. I'm a gamer, and would like to know at this stage, given what games are currently out, at what point is buying an SSD over this product actually useful or useless.

 

[mcvf]

[citation][nom]Smeg45[/nom]Why would I want an SSD in a gaming system? I need bulk capacity and this offers it in a fast package.[/citation]
Because a computer without SSD these days cannot be called serious gaming machine.

 

[alidan]

[citation][nom]Draven35[/nom]Maybe it was built in hi-res segments and if the segments were all loaded at once it would be 1 TB... maybe. You can't really build a complete model that no computer available can load into RAM- keep in mind ILM's desktop machines are desktop PCs running Linux, not anything special or spectacular.[/citation]

i wasn't talking about loaded at one time, just the total size was 1tb at least, i was more bringing that up because of its massive scale, and how much space it used, so anything less would fit well on a 4ssd raid over one of these drives.

 

[dragonsqrrl]

[citation][nom]dragonsqrrl[/nom]No, the raptor is actually quite a bit further ahead than that, especially in random i/o, where it has as much as a 2x performance lead on the 3/4TB Barracuda XT's. Even in sequential reads/writes (generally the performance strong point of 7200RPM drives) it still has around a 50% performance advantage.http://www.anandtech.com/show/5729 [...] z-review/2[/citation]
Actually let me revise that. In 4k random write, it performs almost 3x better than the Barracuda XT's. In any case, it's not even close. The 1TB VelociRaptor performs much more than 10% better than the 3/4TB Barracuda XT's.

 

[blazorthon]

This Raptor might beat the 4TB 7.2K HDD listed in the review, but if 1TB of data is written to both, then which would win? If someone really needs a lot of capacity and at high performance, then maybe the 4TB drive would be a better option. Other than that, I can't help but think that maybe a RAID setup of cheaper drives could offer better performance and capacity at a lower price. Maybe most cheaper drives won't have equal reliability, but some levels of RAID can fix that easily enough.

I can't imagine RAID not being an option for most people in the already small niche that I could see buying such a drive. Sure, the 1TB drive does offer interestingly good performance for an HDD and at $300, a third of what you'd pay for a single 1TB SSD (if not less than a third), but can anyone really tell me with a strait face that several Intel 330 SSDs in RAID 5 couldn't be a better solution, unless you don't have room for that many 2.5" drives? Any situation that an affordable SSD would not be adequate for because of sheer amounts of writes would probably be a situation where a few cheaper HDDs in RAID would be a far better solution anyway.

I'm not saying that there are no situations where these WD drives are the best option, just that such situations seem to not be very common at all, at least not anymore.

[citation][nom]Draven35[/nom]I seriously doubt it was either 1 TB or 1 PB... probably more like 1 GB...[/citation]

Movies in their full quality can take up more than 1TB of storage space. Heck, even a DVD movie can take up much more than 1GB, so I don't know why you would think that a full-quality movie would need less capacity. These days, some movies can take up several TB and we might have broke past 10TB at some point. This is completely uncompressed and considering that movies are recorded in very high resolutions these days, but still. Think about how much storage space a movie that is recorded in a 4K resolution can take up when it's one and a half to two and a half hours long. Then include things such as 3D and deleted scenes. I'm no expert in this, but there are probably even more factors to consider.