36Gb Serial ATA 10,000 RPM drive experiences?

[FearTec]

Hello

Does anyone have a Western Digital 36.7GB Serial ATA, 10,000 RPM Hard Drive(WD360GDRTL)? What does it perform like (I cant find any google results for it)?

Product Info: http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=40

I am thinking of getting one of these for my main OS and swap file drive. Hopefully the drive will be free (for building a PC for a friends friend).

Thanks for you comments and experience.

Simon

[JamminPotato]

many people on this baord havethem, just they are referred to as raptors (the drive not the people) but every1 who has one seems to like it though the 74 gb seems more liked

[johan851]

I have the 74gb myself. It's a better drive overall than the 36gb, almost like a second revision. The 74gb features fluid bearings instead of ball bearings, faster seek times, faster outer zone transfer rates, and TCQ while the 36gb doesn't. They're great drives to have and make a big difference in overall performance when upgrading from a 7200RPM drive.

Check out www.storagereview.com for reviews - I'm sure they have some somewhere.

[deathman20]

I have a 36.7gb Raptor, love the thing. But if I waited for a few more weeks I coulda gotten the 74gb Raptor, which is overall better.

Either way you can't loose with the drives, I use mine as my main OS drive and Main Application drive. Thing runs like a charm and decently quick load times compared to my old 60gig 7,200rpm 2mb cache drive.

[fuzzba11]

I have one and I absolutely love it. It reduced my Windows boot time and the load time on games. Highly recommended for a speedy main drive!

[johan851]

Either way you can't loose with the drives, I use mine as my main OS drive and Main Application drive. Thing runs like a charm and decently quick load times compared to my old 60gig 7,200rpm 2mb cache drive.
Yup. Both are great drives, but the 74gb has an edge. It really depends on what you're looking for and what your budget is. Actually (new thought) I'd bet that the 74gb versions would hold their value a little better if you're someone, like me, who affords new hardware because they can sell the old.

[walkitiki]

Are the 10,000 RPM drives any bit lounder than the 7,200 RPM Drives, I'm also considering upgrading to one a raptor. Thanks,

[phaeton]

the 74gB drives are pleasantly quiet.

[johan851]

Yeah, the 36gb versions the louder of the two, as the 74gb utilizes the fluid bearings. The 74gb is fairly quiet. I can definitely hear it seeking, even from outside my room, but it's not an annoying sound. I always kinda liked the sound of a hard drive working, actually.

[JoJoMoJo]

I had two in a raid zero. The boot time was a blink and they were fast. I traded the pc though for another that came with two u160 scsi...... and even though the raptors booted faster.... for some reason database applications, server roles, and just general feel faster went to the scsi :attn:
I have no idea why. :attn:

[fuzzba11]

Are the 10,000 RPM drives any bit louder than the 7,200 RPM Drives, I'm also considering upgrading to one a raptor. Thanks,
My 36 gig is pretty silent, so I don't think so.

[Vio1]

Ive had 2 36gb raptors in raid-0 and switched to 1 74gb raptor... its better! faster load ups, faster access time. More quiet then 2 loud 36gb drives.. They are both a ton faster then any 7200rpm drive ive tested. Id never go back to 7200rpm (as my main OS hdd).

[Bleed4Me]

Yup, I really like mine.

I'm not a big benchmarker, but you can just feel the speed. I can just barely hear the plates spinning at idle but thats about it, both are quiter than my Maxtor, but I love this one also.

I have my OS on the Maxtor and others like games on the RAIDed Raptors, you will see the speed.

Go get'm!

[Xaotic]

Here's a head to head comparison between your current 7200.7 and both versions of the Raptors across several different benchmarks:

http://storagereview.com/php/benchmark/compare_rtg_2001.php?typeID=10&testbedID=3&osID=4&raidconfigID=1&numDrives=1&devID_0=259&devID_1=249&devID_2=261&devCnt=3

I run SCSI, but anything you can do to reduce disk latency is an improvement. Though the 7200.7 is fast for a 7200RPM drive, it simply cannot match the performance of a faster spindle.

[FearTec]

Thanks Guys, I will get a 36gb or a 74gb (if i can spare the cash).

Anyway as long as there arent any propbs with the 36gb

[alien dork]

i would get 2 of the 7.2k SATA drives (same price as one single 74GB rapter) and raid 0 (stripping) them. which means it could go up as high as 100+mb/s compared to a single 70mb/s rapter. theoretically speaking, pci(non-X and non-E) buses can only go up to 133mb/s (110+mb/s due to interference), so there's actually not that big of a advantage going to rapter compared to getting 2 SATA (300+GBs total) drives.

anyone has any different thoughts or corrections please post.

[johan851]

You'd get higher transfer rates, yes, but you'd still have a 7200rpm seek time, and seek time is where a lot of that snappy feel comes from. The 74gb Raptor has technology like NCQ which speeds up intense I/O operations as well. Also, RAID 0 doubles your chances of drive failure and makes it nearly impossible to recover data if something goes wrong. Of course, considering that the Raptor is built on SCSI technology, it's a little more reliable than the 7200RPMs drives to begin with. Not much, but a little.

[alien dork]

i thought that if you raid the drives the seek time would be reduced to half. isn't that right? personally, i haven't had any hard drive failed on me yet, i also back up my files on an external hard drive in case something goes goes wrong(windows crashing on me and such). also, i do a clean installation of windows every couple months or so, that's why all the important files are backed up (DVD burner does a great job when it comes to backing up information).

[johan851]

i thought that if you raid the drives the seek time would be reduced to half. isn't that right?
I wish. RAID 0 is faster because it's reading the data from two drives simultaneously, but it sure doesn't make up for lost spindle speed. It's the equivalent of two drives in terms of transfer (like a single drive with double the read/write speed) but that doesn't make it the equivalent of a single drive at 14400rpm. Both drives still take the same 7200RPM seek time. Otherwise RAIDed 15k RPM SCSI drives would have seek times of around 1.6ms.

[alien dork]

I wish. RAID 0 is faster because it's reading the data from two drives simultaneously, but it sure doesn't make up for lost spindle speed. It's the equivalent of two drives in terms of transfer (like a single drive with double the read/write speed) but that doesn't make it the equivalent of a single drive at 14400rpm. Both drives still take the same 7200RPM seek time. Otherwise RAIDed 15k RPM SCSI drives would have seek times of around 1.6ms.

so you are saying that if there are two disks, it would take the same time to find that file? how does that work? okay... lets say that there's a person A that can look for an item in a room in 20 seconds. and there's person B that can find the same item in 30 seconds. if there are 2 person B looking for that item, it would take them both 30 seconds to find it instead of 15 seconds? or are you saying that there are 2 person B looking for an item in 2 rooms( 1 with the item and one without), and it would take them 30 seconds to find it because one of them is searching in an empty room? is that how it works? please explain. thankx

[The_Jizzler]

yea thats right, it wont speed up the seek time of the drive. it speeds the transfer of files, not how fast they are found. i dont really understand your analogy/question tho.
seek time is something AFAIK cant be changed in the drive, no matter what you do. due to the fact its directly related to RPM. its like having people dig a ditch. i can add people to the crew to get the job done quicker, but adding people isnt going make them gather their tools and get to the jobsite any faster.

[alien dork]

i.c. so raid0 would significantly increase the speed if you are transferring a large file (tens of gbs), but if you are transferring millions of small files the speed would be the same as a single 7.2k drive? so if a game you're playing loads big startup movie (100mbs), the difference in loading time would be significant enough to notice? so that right?

[hawtrawkr]

could anyone tell me why on my amd system it reads my raptor as a removable device but same drive on intel it doesnt?

[alien dork]

could anyone tell me why on my amd system it reads my raptor as a removable device but same drive on intel it doesnt?

there was one time when the computer read one of the harddrives(maybe it was a cdrom drive) as a network drive. what happened is that there was already a network drive predefined on the computer with the drive letter E:, then when i added the cd/hd it replaced the network drive letter and it also took over the network drive properties. It was strange and bazzare, after it happened to few computer we noticed that it was the problem with predefined drive letter. i don't know if that's the case with you, but it is worth a look at.


EDIT: also try to uninstall the driver for it and then reinstall it again, it helps sometimes.

[fabulouscoops]

Alien Dork
Neither of your analogies is correct.
There are two people (seek time 30 sec) and two rooms (drives) but the item (data) has been cut in half and there is one half in each room. Instead of one person searching both rooms, it is faster for two people to search one room each and combine the item when they emerge.

[johan851]

so you are saying that if there are two disks, it would take the same time to find that file? how does that work? okay... lets say that there's a person A that can look for an item in a room in 20 seconds. and there's person B that can find the same item in 30 seconds. if there are 2 person B looking for that item, it would take them both 30 seconds to find it instead of 15 seconds? or are you saying that there are 2 person B looking for an item in 2 rooms( 1 with the item and one without), and it would take them 30 seconds to find it because one of them is searching in an empty room? is that how it works? please explain. thankx
Fabulouscoops is more or less correct. The two persons B always take 30 seconds to find the item, but instead of one item, there is half of each item in two different rooms. In fact, if it ever takes person B 32 seconds because he's a little farther away, then it's going to take 32 seconds before person A has his half of the item. They both work at the rate of the slowest person.

[fastcuda]

seagate and maxtor are both incorporating the new NCQ technology into the 7200 rpm sata drives now. They are claiming a 20% increase in performance. Anyone know how these compare to the raptors?
What does it take to have support on the motherboard for NCQ or is it just software updates?

[sirjinx1974]

http://www.myputer.mine.nu/

Here is my benchmark for my 2 36gig raptors.

[Jizzzared]

Although a bit loud, my 36 gig raptors are stellar performers and make my system feel extremely quick.