Raptor Drives: How Many Of U Are Using 1 Non-RAID

[Fireside85281]

I don't know too much about testing HDs, but dicecca mentioned HDTach. So I grabbed HDTach and ran it on my two, single drives. 1 drive is the old 74GB 8mb cache Raptor, the other is the new 150GB Raptor X with 16mb cache. Here's a screenshot of my results. I only tested it once on each HD, and HDTach is mounted on the 74GB Raptor, if that matters any. Oh, and I haven't enabled SATAII on my board yet, if it makes any difference.

I don't really feel I need to run them in RAID, especially when I think I could spend the cash on better upgrades. They seem fast enough for regular work, but I mainly game on my machine. The only real advantage for the HDs in gaming are map loading times it seems, and I'm already usually the 1st-3rd person done loading maps. I'm sure I haven't tuned it the fastest I could, but I think the only people that beat me loading the maps are people running SLi.

I'd be willing to run other tests with different programs if anyone's interested.

 

[dfonda]

Used a 74gb raptor and it was fast! When I needed to reformat decided to give up performance for size. Went to 320Gb with a 120Gb as backup/storage. The big drives are just so cheap. If the 150GB came down in price I would consider two of them in RAID.

Sadly the 74GB is just sitting around gathering dust.

 

[AngelfireUk83]

I will be buying a 74gb raptor but I couldn't find the WD 120GB SATA drive I wanted so I found this 1 Western Digital Caviar RE 160GB 1600YS SATA-II 16MB Cache.

Even thou I'm using a SATA150 onboard controller will the drive still use it's 16mb cache if I using SATA150. I know you have to use a jumper to set it to SATA150.

 

[Nautica]

I will be buying a 74gb raptor but I couldn't find the WD 120GB SATA drive I wanted so I found this 1 Western Digital Caviar RE 160GB 1600YS SATA-II 16MB Cache.

Even thou I'm using a SATA150 onboard controller will the drive still use it's 16mb cache if I using SATA150. I know you have to use a jumper to set it to SATA150.

to my knowledge it will still use the 16mb of cache in 150mode

 

[AngelfireUk83]

Cool thanks just placed an order for 1 along with the WD Opitical storage cable that supposed to increase performance. And less chance off data corruption accroding to the small print on the website underneth the drive.

 

[fabulouscoops]

To add to the HDtach graph above. Here is one 74 gig 8 MB raptor vs two in RAID 0.