RAID vs Raptor?
- Thread starter BlkShdw88
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Even though the Raptor may be faster, "personally", I would only consider 7200 rpm HDD at the moment. I agree that the price/performance ratio is not justified. Some people use dual combinations with Raptors for the OS disk and a large 7200 rpm for storage. But, u know, I can wait an extra 10 seconds while my computer starts. How u look at game load times is another issue however.
If u want the fastest possible, the Raptor is the way to go
.. Otherwise, the 7200 rpm is great too in its own way.
If u want the fastest possible, the Raptor is the way to go
.. Otherwise, the 7200 rpm is great too in its own way.I've dealt with a number of hard drive configurations, and I will tell you now, if hard drive space is not an issue, the Raptor is the faster overall solution, unless of course you're looking to throw in three or four drives in a RAID 0 which of course increases the risk of failure even moreso.
Now, in theory the two 7200RPM drives in a RAID 0 should cut their access times in half, which should drop them down to about 4ms or so, the same as a single Raptor, but this simply isn't the case in all situations.
The only time you might see a RAID 0 array performing around the same speed as a Raptor is the write process, most intergrated RAID controllers do not support read stripping therefore game load times etc. wouldn't be decreased noticably with a RAID 0.
To summarize, storage size you want the RAID 0. Speed you're looking at the Raptor.
Now, in theory the two 7200RPM drives in a RAID 0 should cut their access times in half, which should drop them down to about 4ms or so, the same as a single Raptor, but this simply isn't the case in all situations.
The only time you might see a RAID 0 array performing around the same speed as a Raptor is the write process, most intergrated RAID controllers do not support read stripping therefore game load times etc. wouldn't be decreased noticably with a RAID 0.
To summarize, storage size you want the RAID 0. Speed you're looking at the Raptor.
I consider cost, heat, noise, and other variables as well.gaara said:
My raptor idles at 37C while the 80gb's are around 25C.
Also like I said it's very loud compared to the 80gb's which I never even hear no matter what I'm doing. And 2 80gb's is cheaper than a 37gb raptor and probably faster, perhaps the 74gb is faster than the 2 80's but you could get 4 80gb's for that price.
As a specifically stated if you're looing for space, go with the RAID 0, if you don't need 160GB of storage space and have money burning a hole in your pocket there's no reason not to get the Raptor for added speed. I will repeat myself, the speed/storage price ratio for each of two combinations balances themselves out. You just have to decide which one you wanna put your money into.
As far as noise goes, I honestly couldn't care less, maybe you do, I really don't know. With proper vibration control and a good air cooling solution you shouldn't be able to hear it. As far as temperature goes, a safe operating temperature for any hard drive is in the 40s, I don't particularily see that as an argument.
As far as noise goes, I honestly couldn't care less, maybe you do, I really don't know. With proper vibration control and a good air cooling solution you shouldn't be able to hear it. As far as temperature goes, a safe operating temperature for any hard drive is in the 40s, I don't particularily see that as an argument.
Temperature is not a issue here..Just becasue the Raptor runs slightly warmer, does not make this any kind of liability. Nor does this effect performance. Noise level is the same... Raptors are not very loud at all. If you have some type of custom cooling system. Such as a after market heatsink/cpu fan, along with a few fans. You wont be able to hear anything from your HDD. Not even a SCSI drive.. People would like to think running normal drives on raid0 can out-beat 10000rpm drives, but this is not true. Gaara's first statement along with the link he posted, ended the debate. Raid0 is a great division for data, but its limited. Raid0 gets its SPEED from the drive. The way it handles data is ideal, but its limited by speed. Then Dale comes in, and starts adding all these so called bad assets that come with 10000rpm drives. Like heat and noise. But none of them are elaborate enough to produce any sort of consequence.... Money is the only problem, but let it be known Raptors are not normal drives. So they shouldent be considered as one. So dont be surprised by the cost, these are top-line performance drives. Its like comparing the performance efficiency and price of a FX-55 to a 3500.
gaara said:
Not true man. Even in theory, you have to model "typical computer use" to the best of your ability. In which case, the access time cannot possible be cut in half - even in the theoritical sense. If a model says that the performance increase should be 2x, it just means that its a poor model.
As your model gets more and more elaborate, the estimate will start to resemble benchmarks more and more.. The fact that the "2x" performance is usually not realized in benchmarks clearly should indicate that there is a huge flaw in the model that is typically used - in this case assuming that for all time accesses are perfectly divided between the 2 drives.. A "better" model would be realizing that when a new request comes in to HDD1, there is a 25% chance that HDD1 is busy from another request, while HDD2 is free, etc. etc.
This is "still" a vast simplication and is still a very poor model. But better that the original one I would think... I would presume that the original model is only valid when you read/write a large file and do nothing else.. A "perfect" model would be able to incorporate all these cases and different types of accesses, and then also incorporate a probabilistic model for each type of access in order to estimate the "performance increase".. But, this is complicated and would differ from user to user.. However, we can still easily construct a better model than the original that gives "2x".
yeh noise is not really a problem (for me).. and yes i suppose it is like comparing as top of line cpu to mid range for price/performance ratio.. hmm still tough decision to make i think, i want to have super quick o/s loading time and application loading time, i dont really care that much about copying large files like movies, as long as its quicker than normal.. but another question... RAID 0 makes windows load slower does it not? because it has to load more drivers.. i know RAID has own bios but i just would like to have extremely fast boot times for windows and applications etc.. i think most reviews/benchmarks are showing raptor to be faster in this area and RAID (any) to be just trailing behind
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