Raptor

[HotDamn!]

Browsing Newegg and found this. Hope you like

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136553

Enough room for your OS and some games or a few other things you would like to execute on a 10,000 RPM drive and just pop your movies, music, ect.. on your other drive for storage.

I like the price.

[rallynavvie]

I'm surprised they're still selling the 74GB model. Must still be people buying replacements. And they've given it the "VelociRaptor" name but it doesn't look to be the 2.5" drive like the new ones. However for the size I would just recommend getting a high-density drive unless you're doing a lot of database work or multitasking where the spindle speed would actually come into play. For general use you'll probably not notice it.

[Noahtuck]

You do realize that's a physically smaller HDD for a laptop right ?

just pop your movies, music, ect.. on your other drive for storage.

Seems like you plan on using it in a desktop.

[jagabo]

I agree with rallynavvie -- under many conditions a >1TB 7200 RPM drive is faster. And far cheaper on a $/GB basis.

[HotDamn!]

You do realize that's a physically smaller HDD for a laptop right ?

just pop your movies, music, ect.. on your other drive for storage.

Seems like you plan on using it in a desktop.

Actually no I didn't realize that

I guess Newegg didn't do to good of a job with my searching. I narrowed it down to just 10,000 RPM desktop drives and this was actually the first time I seen one with only 74GB on it so maybe that's why

rallynavvie: so there really isn't much of a noticeable difference with the 10,000 RPM compared to the 7,200 ?? I was thinking of getting one but may save myself the money.

[edDV]

10,000 and 15,000 RPM Raptors are very noisy. That must be considered.

[HotDamn!]

10,000 and 15,000 RPM Raptors are very noisy. That must be considered.

My computer is noisy as it is so I would hate to add more to that but I think I may just stick with the good ol' 7,200 RPM drives and when the prices go down on the others I may give one a try.

[rallynavvie]

10,000 and 15,000 RPM Raptors are very noisy. That must be considered.

The new ones that use the 2.5" form factor are not. They are similar to the same format SAS drives which are nearly as quiet as any other desktop drive. They also use less power.

This is a 2.5" drive, but so are all the VelociRaptor series. They should all come with a 3.5" mounting bracket/enclosure so they'll work on any 3.5" drive bay that doesn't use a backplane. From the photos I assumed this was an old 3.5" because it doesn't show it in the enclosure so I would be wary if it doesn't come with one.

[jagabo]

so there really isn't much of a noticeable difference with the 10,000 RPM compared to the 7,200 ??

It depends on the application. A low density 10K RPM drive definitely has the advantage in random seek time. But a high density 7200 drive may have the advantage in sequential read/write time. Which is faster overall depends on the mix of random vs sequential operation.

I may just stick with the good ol' 7,200 RPM drives and when the prices go down on the others I may give one a try.

Skip the 10K drives. Solid state drives are getting close to US$100 now.

[aedipuss]

this one would be more useful for most of us. and the page does a nice review/stats of current w.d.'s.
http://www.storagereview.com/western_digital_velociraptor_review

[redwudz]

I've been very happy with my 150GB Raptor. It comes in a holder for a 3.5 bay. It's just as quiet as any of my other HDDs and just the right size. 74GB is a bit small for newer OSs, especially if you start installing programs on it and use it for page and temp files. I wouldn't recommend it for a OS drive.

I have a 60GB OCZ SSD drive and it's very fast and way too small for Vista or W7. I spent a lot of time trying to keep programs from loading it up. I would recommend at least a 120GB SSD, but they are expensive. $$ I replaced it with the Raptor and use the SSD for a scratch drive.

[rallynavvie]

I replaced it with the Raptor and use the SSD for a scratch drive.

I assume you have your pagefile set to the SSD? That would be fantastic for pagefile.

[jagabo]

If you have enough memory just run without a pagefile.

[redwudz]

I replaced it with the Raptor and use the SSD for a scratch drive.

I assume you have your pagefile set to the SSD? That would be fantastic for pagefile.

No, but I'll give that a try. I don't really use it that often at present. I had a lot of problems with the SSD getting corrupted, but finally found a way to clean it up, similar to defragging a rotary drive. Regular defragging damages them and the newer SSDs use a better system to move data around to keep the cell wear even. It's a older OCZ and I'm guessing newer SSDs have less problems.

I ran the PC drives in AHCI mode at the time and that may have been most of the problem for this SSD as that's not recommended. When it worked, it was great, but too much maintenance and problems for me as a boot drive.

I had to keep it at about 50% free space for best operation and that left me with about 30 - 40GB to use for the OS. A bit tight for Vista or W7. And every freaking program would want to write something to it, reducing free space fairly rapidly. If I took the page and temp files off it and installed most of my programs on other drives, it would boot really fast. But then my programs would load slower. Kind of defeats the purpose of having a fast drive if it only helps for a fast boot.

I would like to try a 120GB SSD or a bit larger if they were just a bit cheaper.

EDIT: I have 4GB RAM on the PC with the SSD. I did move the page file to the SSD and will see how that works.