WD Raptors 74 or 150gb models

David230 · 19 Feb 2006 at 16:46

I am thinking of buying 2 74gb's or 1x 150 @ the end of the month. Just wanted to know, are these drives noisy at idle and when operating? I have a quiet system and I am having trouble finding a drive that does'nt irritate the crap out of me.

Looking for hardcore performance from a drive aswell and these look like they might be just the ticket.

Humey · 19 Feb 2006 at 18:10

Please search through this forum, there is plenty of threads about raptors inc 150's

vapor matt · 19 Feb 2006 at 18:46

Hi

2 x 74g raptors in raid will out perform 1 single raptor 150 drive, infact 1 x 74 gig raptor out performs 1 x 150g raptor drive. the 74 gig raptors are faster because of the platter layout.

as for noise raptors can be noisy, but so can other drives, performance comes at a price of noise. the spinpoint drives are one of the more silent models, but they dont perform aswell as the raptor range. you can use silent drive enclosures which will help reduce the noise.

I run 2 36g raptors in raid O and i cant say i notice the noise above any other computer noise. the noise dosnt jump out and have you saying wow those drives are noisy. but as for performance you can only beat the raptors with SCSI drives.

Skeme · 19 Feb 2006 at 18:51

David230 said:
I am thinking of buying 2 74gb's or 1x 150 @ the end of the month. Just wanted to know, are these drives noisy at idle and when operating? I have a quiet system and I am having trouble finding a drive that does'nt irritate the crap out of me.

Looking for hardcore performance from a drive aswell and these look like they might be just the ticket.

Well the performance is excellent but they are not quiet drives

My 74Gb was fine when idle with just the occasional clunk but when busy it sounded like rain on a tin roof so i bunged it in a Silentmaxx HD Enclosure and i can't hear it at all now.

Humey · 19 Feb 2006 at 18:56

The 150's is said to be cooler/quieter than the 36/74's

David230 · 19 Feb 2006 at 19:18

If performance is very good, I can live with the noise. Or do as skeme said and put them in enclosures.

Can you get watercooled enclosures seeing as I am heading the W/C way.

TBH my spinpoint is noisy, it could be theres something up or I might have expected too much from it. Its been winding me up something cronick this weekend. Theres a few posts scattered around the place about it.lol

OCuk prices seem very good on the raptors so I think I might have to make up a little shopping list EOM!!

vapor matt · 19 Feb 2006 at 19:25

well the raptors will give you a boost in performance for sure! as for your spinpoint drive being noisy i cant say as i cant here it, but it should be near silent, i have on of the spinpoints and its so quiet i have to try hard to hear it. mind you i might be going deaf! lol

good luck with your future purchase! you wont be disapointed with the raptor performance!

FirePhoenixCtk · 19 Feb 2006 at 22:05

this review here shows that the raptor 150 is faster

smids · 19 Feb 2006 at 22:40

The Ratptor 150GB is a good 10-15MB/s faster than the 74GB Raptor. I have owned all 3 flavours of the Raptors and the 150GB is easily the fastest. It feels not that much slower than my 74GB Raptor RAID which I used to have - honestly. It is no louder than any other drive when idle, only when seeking can you hear it due to the sheer speed at which it seeks.

mrochester · 19 Feb 2006 at 23:56

The 36gb and 74gb Raptors both use 36gb platters (or 2 for the 74gb model, obviously). The 150gb Raptor uses 74gb platters (2 of them), so the if the platters are physically the same size, then the aerial density has been increased dramatically and should easily see the 150gb model have a decent speed increase over the earlier versions.

David230 · 20 Feb 2006 at 00:35

Cheers for your info guys.

I guess if I could ever afford a second 150gb raptor, then that would be the ideal setup.

Looks like 1 x 150gb for now and just be patient.

FirePhoenixCtk · 20 Feb 2006 at 01:55

there was a rumour about a revised edition of the 74gb raptors but it could quite possibly be just a rumour.

Jimbo Mahoney · 20 Feb 2006 at 09:21

FirePhoenixCtk said:
there was a rumour about a revised edition of the 74gb raptors but it could quite possibly be just a rumour.

Yeh, I think they're making them into 150GB Raptors...

TaKeN · 20 Feb 2006 at 12:02

Two 74GB Raptors in Raid O

My Raptors

FirePhoenixCtk · 20 Feb 2006 at 12:30

Jimbo Mahoney said:
Yeh, I think they're making them into 150GB Raptors...

i hope your taking the p1sh, i meant like a 3rd revision of the 74gb raptors..

vapor matt · 20 Feb 2006 at 18:53

well in random access times the 74g raptor is faster its only in transfere rates that the 150g raptor is faster! says so in that very review in this thread!

the 150 g raptor is bottom the 74g raptor is 4th from bottom! so it may be faster is some things but not in access.
the 74 gig is faster in this.

smids · 20 Feb 2006 at 19:32

vapor matt said:
well in random access times the 74g raptor is faster its only in transfere rates that the 150g raptor is faster! says so in that very review in this thread!

the 150 g raptor is bottom the 74g raptor is 4th from bottom! so it may be faster is some things but not in access.
the 74 gig is faster in this.

By less than 1ms... 0.6 and .03ms - I'm sorry but no-one will miss that. When it is 13ms and 7ms granted but 7.7ms and 8.0ms no way.

vapor matt · 20 Feb 2006 at 20:11

I agree it makes very little diffrence, but the 74g is faster! so the new flag ship raptor 150g isnt fastest in everything.

but hey who cares, iam going SCSI anyway! :eek:

easyrider · 24 Mar 2006 at 14:01

sorry to bring up an old thread but I'm seriously thinking about getting rid of my raid 0 setup 2x 36 Raptors and getting a 150 gig one.

I'm running out of space on the array and was thinking I might sell the two I have and get another 74 gig and maybe get another 74 down the line.

But if its worth it would the 150 gig one be the best option.

I mean its a lot of dosh to whack out 200 quid and input would help.

I have got used to the speed of 2 raptors in raid would it be much slower with one 74 gig or 150 gig?

TooNice · 24 Mar 2006 at 21:49

vapor matt said:
I agree it makes very little diffrence, but the 74g is faster! so the new flag ship raptor 150g isnt fastest in everything.

http://www.storagereview.com/php/be...&numDrives=1&devID_0=308&devID_1=306&devCnt=2
If the random access do not translate into real world performance in applications, then I would not put much weighting on it.

Two 1st-Gen Raptor in RAID-0 will gives you (close to) twice the sequential read/write performance to a single one. Which is more than even a single 3rd gen (150GB) Raptor can manage. But that is the only advantage you will gain.
The 2nd/3rd gen Raptor will be faster across the board in every functions that does not rely heavily on sequential read/write.. which is most applications.

Where you may notice a loss in performance is during Windows boot up (which seem to heavily benefit from RAID - but personally I can wait a few extra seconds myself), benchmarks, and video editing (from the top of my head). For other applications, the benefit is closer to nothing to 20%.

Having said that.. the Raptor is a lot of money for what it provides right now. It is one of those things where you need to know you are paying a big premium for the last few % of performance boost. It's premium storage.. just like the FX60 is a premium CPU, £200 RAM, etc.