View Full Version : Higher Capacity Western Digital Raptors -- Rumors, innuendo?
SignorSalad
07-12-04, 04:38 PM
Any news out there on when we may see larger WD Raptors? I'd love to see 10,000rpm Western Digital's in higher capacity.
Any news out there on when we may see larger WD Raptors? I'd love to see 10,000rpm Western Digital's in higher capacity. when pigs fly.... ok just kidding.. i think it has something todo with there scsi buisness.... they dont want to draw to many wouldbe customers away from that lucrative market segment
Its possible, but too expensive right now... plus 74gb @ 10K is fine for me ;)
nvnews-reader
07-13-04, 03:38 AM
Why not just buy 2 7200rpm drive and run them in a RAID?
I would really like to have a 1T HDD. Then I would start a dvd collection and be able to play Unreal3. lol
I thought I read somewhere that 74gig Raptors have been more prone to overheating? If thats the case, maybe they need to rethink the design of the raptors for better cooling. It wouldn't surprise me when you consider the fact we've had the same looking hard drive design for at least a decade.
SignorSalad
07-13-04, 10:22 AM
Why not just buy 2 7200rpm drive and run them in a RAID?
Well, I had planned on buying 2 74gb raptors if it came to that. But I didn't want to buy them and then in a month WD comes out with a new 108gb (or higher capacity) drive that runs cooler. Thats the reason why I wondered if anyone had heard any info. Its kind of like waiting on Socket 939. Lots of people decided not to go with socket 754 chips cause they knew something better was just around the corner. Same principal. Dont want to invest in the 74s if something better is just around the corner. Know what I mean?
As for RAID 0, Anandtech's tests have shown that in real world normal user desktop applications, Raid 0 provides little to no benefit, and depending on your setup, may increase CPU usage.
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2101
Also it decreses the mean time between failures, although Western Digitals have been so reliable for me that I doubt that would be an issue. But there's much more benefit with going with single 10k drives. Real world, a single 10k drive (or 2 singles) would be faster than 2 7200 drives in RAID 0.
Cheers
:type:
coldpower27
07-14-04, 10:29 PM
Dunno how would they make it cooler, current 10K RPM drives use 40GB platters or so, 36Gb formatted capacity or whatnot. So a 110GB Drive right now would be 3 Platter Design, unless they somehow increase capacity for SCSI designs in the near future, since the Raptor is based on SCSI technology. I don't see how they can make the drive run all that much cooler.
SignorSalad
07-15-04, 10:06 AM
Dunno how would they make it cooler, current 10K RPM drives use 40GB platters or so, 36Gb formatted capacity or whatnot. So a 110GB Drive right now would be 3 Platter Design, unless they somehow increase capacity for SCSI designs in the near future, since the Raptor is based on SCSI technology. I don't see how they can make the drive run all that much cooler.
Supposedly the 74Gb raptor runs cooler than the 36Gb model, but I was just using bigger/cooler as an example. If its bigger but not cooler, thats fine too. Just was curious if a higher capacity model was coming up soon.
saturnotaku
07-15-04, 10:09 AM
Real world, a single 10k drive (or 2 singles) would be faster than 2 7200 drives in RAID 0.
So in your opinion, going with a single 74 GB Raptor would be better than going with two 36 GB RAID-0 drives?
SignorSalad
07-15-04, 10:54 AM
Well, take what I say with a grain of salt really. I haven't personally tested it, and don't know of any review sites out there that have directly compared one 74Gb 10k rpm raptor against 2 7200rpm drives in RAID 0, so I cannot say for sure.
But.. Anandtech's tests pretty much indicate that in real world desktop usage, there's little to no benefit from running raid 0. So it stands to reason that 2 7200rpm drives in RAID 0 would not outperform one 74gb 10k rpm Raptor, and be slower in most instances except pure HD performance benches.
Now if you are talking about 2 10k rpm 36gb raptors running in Raid 0 outperforming 1 10k 74gb Raptor. You're comparing 10k RAID to 10k no RAID. , which is observed in Anand's tests. Again, except in pure HD performance benches, where RAID shines, there's no benefit. Real world desktop applications gain almost nothing.
Vagrant Zero
07-15-04, 09:19 PM
Of course 1 74gb Raptor would beat down 2x36 raps in Raid 0. Not only does Raid 0 do just about nothing in terms of gaming performance and such, but it certainly can't make up for the 74s faster access time [4.8 vs 5.2].
Bill The Cat
07-16-04, 01:06 PM
Of course 1 74gb Raptor would beat down 2x36 raps in Raid 0. Not only does Raid 0 do just about nothing in terms of gaming performance and such, but it certainly can't make up for the 74s faster access time [4.8 vs 5.2].
Due to the Anandtech article, the focus seems to be on gaming these days for RAID0. While there may be little advantage for gaming, even Joe Sixpack could tell you the gain in Windows boot times, application installation and large file transfers. I am an avid DVD burner, and RAID0 makes an _enormous_ difference. So while gaming performance with RAID0 may not be very noticable, the technology is still very useful for a wide range of applications and uses.
And 2 36 GB Raptors will have the advantage in load times. As they can seek across two disks simultaneously, they will take the advantage regardless of their slower access times.
I wonder if they can take "double" advantage of NCQ?
coldpower27
07-17-04, 06:49 PM
Not current Raptors no, none of them are native Serial ATA connections, they both use bridge chips. NCQ is only available on NAtive Serial ATA implementation, Seagate's the only one who has that, and the new 16MB Cache Buffer drives from Maxtor are as well.
So in your opinion, going with a single 74 GB Raptor would be better than going with two 36 GB RAID-0 drives?
scroll down a bit and look at the recent raid articles...
http://www.storagereview.com/index.html
Filibuster
07-18-04, 07:55 PM
when pigs fly.... ok just kidding.. i think it has something todo with there scsi buisness.... they dont want to draw to many wouldbe customers away from that lucrative market segment
Western Digital hasn't had a SCSI business to protect for years. Their last SCSI drives were launched at the end of 1999.
That is the reason why nobody else has 10Krpm ATA drives...they all still do have SCSI customers to keep. Serial SCSI (SAS) is coming along though...and it allows for SAS and SATA hard drives on the same controller, so you can have your high traffic database on 15KRpm drives via SCSI protocol and the lower demand, higher capacity on SATA 7200Rpm, if you wish.
If I had the choice between a 74GB Raptor and 2 36GB Raptors I would probably do 2 36GB Raptors _not_ in RAID0. Put paging files on each drive. Download files to one and uncompress to the other. It will be faster than if they were RAID0 because the drives will write sequentially and not have to seek all over. Plus this way if you have critical files you can save a copy on each drive and it will not be lost if one drive fails.
http://faq.storagereview.com/SingleDriveVsRaid0
The only reason I wouldn't do that now is noise...the 74GB drives all use fluid bearings and are much quieter...word is that some 36GB Raptors also use these new bearings, but I don't think anyone knows how to tell them apart for certain. Maybe I will get two 74GB Raptors. :)
Maverick123w
07-19-04, 11:52 PM
Why not do 2 36GB in a RAID-0 ? It would be wicked fast and you would have tons of space.
Filibuster
07-20-04, 10:57 AM
Why not do 2 36GB in a RAID-0 ? It would be wicked fast and you would have tons of space.
You don't lose any space by having separate drives, you just have to manage it more. This is also part of why I said I wouldn't get 36GB drives...I'd do 2 74's. (I have a 73GB 10KRpm SCSI drive now, so going smaller isn't an option)
If you are comparing one disk vs two, noise is another factor, unless you overclock and your fans are like 60Db. :P
This is from the link I posted. I know its the whole page is a little long so I'll quote it
"To summarize, RAID 0 offers generally minimal performance gains, significantly increased risk of data loss, and greater cost. That said, it offers the ability to have one large partition using the combined space of your identical drives, and there are situations where the benefit of the benefits outweight the disadvantages. It is your computer: The choice is up to you."
It really is up to the user. I'm just saying how I would do it because:
a) I see data loss due to hard drive failure all the time at work, and it sucks to have to say "where is your backup?" knowing full well they don't have one. Then they get mad at me because I can't recover it. Raid0 doubles the chances of data loss due to drive failure. I know it sounds dumb because the chances are low, but it is true. Save important files to more than one place. Get a usb pen drive if you have to. :)
b) Most truely disk limited operations will be faster with separate disks. Ie unzipping huge files, disk to disk is faster.
c) Anandtech showed that game loading is only improved slightly on Raid, and I've experienced this before when I was on Raid0. Seek times will be better overall on single drives, and that makes things feel zippier to me, like when lots of little things have to load during gameplay.
d) I don't care about OS loading times, I reboot my pc like once a week (maybe). Even if I did the difference in loading times aren't significant unless you are benchmarking OS load times. :) Who uses their PC for 20 seconds and then shuts it down?
There are reasons you may want to use Raid0, but just make sure you save your critical stuff somewhere else too.
Maverick123w
07-21-04, 07:26 PM
You don't lose any space by having separate drives, you just have to manage it more. This is also part of why I said I wouldn't get 36GB drives...I'd do 2 74's. (I have a 73GB 10KRpm SCSI drive now, so going smaller isn't an option)
If you are comparing one disk vs two, noise is another factor, unless you overclock and your fans are like 60Db. :P
This is from the link I posted. I know its the whole page is a little long so I'll quote it
"To summarize, RAID 0 offers generally minimal performance gains, significantly increased risk of data loss, and greater cost. That said, it offers the ability to have one large partition using the combined space of your identical drives, and there are situations where the benefit of the benefits outweight the disadvantages. It is your computer: The choice is up to you."
It really is up to the user. I'm just saying how I would do it because:
a) I see data loss due to hard drive failure all the time at work, and it sucks to have to say "where is your backup?" knowing full well they don't have one. Then they get mad at me because I can't recover it. Raid0 doubles the chances of data loss due to drive failure. I know it sounds dumb because the chances are low, but it is true. Save important files to more than one place. Get a usb pen drive if you have to. :)
b) Most truely disk limited operations will be faster with separate disks. Ie unzipping huge files, disk to disk is faster.
c) Anandtech showed that game loading is only improved slightly on Raid, and I've experienced this before when I was on Raid0. Seek times will be better overall on single drives, and that makes things feel zippier to me, like when lots of little things have to load during gameplay.
d) I don't care about OS loading times, I reboot my pc like once a week (maybe). Even if I did the difference in loading times aren't significant unless you are benchmarking OS load times. :) Who uses their PC for 20 seconds and then shuts it down?
There are reasons you may want to use Raid0, but just make sure you save your critical stuff somewhere else too.
Wow maybe you should take a breath and read that over again. Raid-0 Arrays are much faster.
I should be getting my 74GB Raptor tomorrow :)
Filibuster
07-21-04, 08:14 PM
Wow maybe you should take a breath and read that over again. Raid-0 Arrays are much faster.
Yes they are, depending on what you are doing. The numbers are misleading though. It has been proven over and over (and over, and over) though, that sustained transfer rate does not make your applications run faster. It's good for a few specific applications and thats it.
If you want to win a hard disk benchmark, then go ahead and use Raid0. For general use they are not worth using. I moved away from Raid0 two years ago and I am much happier with the performance.
Edit: www.storagereview.com front page, please see the topic called "Stop the RAID0 Insanity!" They aren't stupid, it's been beat to death, and they're sick of it.
Like most things it has it's advantages and disadvantages, but a single 740 raptor is alot faster then dual WE SE drives. Also the so called Raptor 740 (74GB) has 69.2GB true disk space, and runs as loud as my old 10GB IBM deskstar during writes.
It also looks like it is a true SCSI drive. :eek:
http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=7123
coldpower27
07-23-04, 11:09 PM
That's not surprising, I thought it was known that Raptor was based on SCSI drive technology? Hence the same amount of platter space as the 10k RPM SCSI drives have now :D
There is possibility of even faster Raptor if WD wanted to base it on 15k RPM SCSI tech. But it would only offer you 18GB or 36GB of HD space for around the same price as a 36GB and 74GB Raptor cost now.
Woodelf
07-27-04, 09:35 PM
Raptors are awesome.
I'd like to get a 74, so I can use my old 36 as a second/paging drive. :clap:
nrdstrm
08-12-04, 04:31 PM
Ummm...Actually the 74GB raptor supports a form of NCQ (they called it TCQ).
From - http://tech-report.com/reviews/2004q1/raptor-wd740gd/index.x?pg=1
"The WD740GD's TCQ support should help the drive compete with SCSI gear, which already supports command queuing. The performance benefits of TCQ should be especially apparent in multi-user benchmarks like IOMeter, where the original Raptor doesn't scale as well under increasing loads as 10K-RPM SCSI drives. We'll be sure to revisit the WD740GD when Serial ATA controllers that support command queuing become available. "
Bill The Cat
08-18-04, 07:11 PM
TCQ requires hardware support by the controller as well as the drive itself. I don't believe there are any controllers out there supporting it at this time. So while it may be a good idea, the support just isn't there. Tangentally, there's a great guide on TCQ, NCQ, and all that good stuff over at Storagereview.com: http://www.storagereview.com/articles/200406/20040625TCQ_1.html
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