Question about Raptors.

[polishruben]

I have been using raid0 for about 2 years with 7200 rpm ibm deskstar disc, and I am now just building a new pc. I won't bore you with the specs, but I want to look into raptors drives. And here is the question - where would be most beneficial to put the drives ?

A) as a system disc drive ( whole drive for c:windows and all what he need s ( page file system etc )

B) as a program files drive ( drogram files )

c) as a multimedia storage disc- where I keep all my Photoshop files, video files etc.

All the drives are ( will be ) separated, no partitions! I want to keep system drive separate from program files and separate from my multimedia files. It seems to work the best for me so far..

So what you guys think ? Most likely I would go with 2 x74 Rappies in SATA raid0 than just one rapX - as suggested above.

So this would be a question for a RAID0 option.

How would your answer alternate if I say that I will go only with ONE Raptor drive. Where would be the most beneficial to stick it ? A,B,C ?

Thanks for your time and help. 8O

 

[wun911]

use the raptor to install windows on to it use it as the primary HD

try and install as many of your programs onto it as possible eg antivirus games etc things that take time to load etc

I would go for a 150 GB raptor and try to install as much of the common stuff as possible.

then get an external (e SATA) HD for your STUFF and mp3s photos etc

 

[polishruben]

no, I don't want to install as much stuff as I can on it. I want to keep it clean - it will be either for A, B or C.

and no porn. porn sux.

 

[wun911]

ok ok just kidding I will edit out my previous statments incase it offends pplz

If i were you I would install windows on your raptor.....

Use your second raptor for installing games.

I use a raptor 150 Gb and I install windows and games on this....

the rest of the crap I install on another HD 7200 rpm

dont use a raptor for installing MP3s its just a waste of potential

 

[polishruben]

gottcha.. when it comes to the worst, I may put win on it and selected programs.. i hate doing that, because the more crap I put on the system drive the more problems I have. I used partitions for a little bit, but then I realized that the best is to dedicate one drive for one purpose.

I guess my biggest question was where the high speed disk shines the most - in running system files or large files ( video, raw big images etc. )

thanks for your replay.
I want to see if the rest of the forum agrees.

peace,

ps. so you use that new raptorx huh ? Did you see that case that wdraptorx.com uses for its ad ? There is a component that I cant figure out - the vertical red, lcd display. Sorta like a banner. It is stuck very closely to the mobo. In the hdd ad video you can see it displays letters like MD or MB or something like that. Any clue what it is, and what it is for? I am sure it is just a blink-blink but, looks kinda cool.

 

[wun911]

Sorry I got the normal 150Gb raptor (without the X) the raptor x has the window but comes at an additional 50 buck cost. I dont need the window because my raptor sits in a HD cage of my Lian Li. There is not differece in prefromance between raptor x and non raptor x so just save your money.

Its a pity you want to use a 74Gb raptor just to install windows onto it becuase windoes XP does not take up a huge amout of space. Windows XP + Office + Antivirus + Adobe etc = about 10 Gb. It just seems like a waste of potential storage space to me.

There are raptors that are smaller than 74 Gb btw..... they come in 30someting Gb flavours too.

Big immages like Tiff Bitmap etc like 10mb sized pics may be better on a raptor interms of editing and then saving. Then loading the next big picture to edit and save etc...spending money on more RAM would probably be better for this sort of thing tho.

From my experience if you install games onto a raptor the games load up much faster eg Fable etc.

 

[wun911]

I thought that 74 Gb raptors had only 8mb cache.

And the 150 had 16mb cache...

How would a 74 raptor be faster than a 150 raptor?

 

[Codesmith]

My personal I find no benifit in installing your OS, games and programs in seperate partitions.

I also believe that regular OS and document backups are essential and keeping all your installed programs in one place simplifies the backup process.

I use True Image for the OS, Retrospect for the data.

Keeping the game's seperate does might be a easy way of backing up your saved games files. But it is just as easy to add it to a Retrospect backup task.

Or you can just setup True Image to automatically backup your OS once a day, once a week and once a month ...

Either way there are automated options that let you protect what needs to be protected without any additional effort, as long as you have the disc space.

I also keep my OS on C: and my documents on D:, both on the same drive because bad things can happen if you move your my documents, desktop, email store folder ... to D: and you boot your computer and D: is not there.

The downside is I have to guess how big my C: partition needs to be, and use Partition Magic to resize the partitions if I guess wrong.

Plus if my documents are stored on my 1st drive and backed up on the 2nd then two drives have to die before I lose anything important.

Of course we likely have different priorites and hence you could have equally valid reasons for doing things the way you do.

--
Also wusy seems to be right about the 74 GB with the 16 MB cache.

HD Tach average read 78,7 MB/s
HD Tach random acces 7,7ms

Accourding to Czech Computer's review. Best review I have found by googling, although I can't read any of the text. I won't hold the fact that they use ,'s for .'s against them.

 

[polishruben]

gesh.. I just read the rai0 vs 1 disk article.. ha. very, very interesting. thank you!..

I use large files quite often - but not many of them exceed 500mb. Usually the range is 100-200 and I do A LOT OF multi-tasking. On an average I have 3-5 programs running at this same time.

I assume raid 0 wouldn't do too much here would it ?

ps. as far as the 150 raptorx. the only reason I want this sucker is that stupid little window.

must.. have .. it.. clear .. window..

It was funny - I wanted to move the whole computer case to storage closet and extend the monitors via CAT5 ( around 35 feet )( yeah it is doable! ). Then use wireless keyboard and mouse and extend DVD drive via firewire. So without spending a lot of $$$ I would have a "silent" system... but since I saw this stupid raptorx with the window that lets you peak into the heart of the drive.. man.. I want to build a computer and put it next to me, so I can stare at it every hour... haha.. 8O

 

[Pain]

What ever you end up doing, take those deathstar disks and throw them in a dumpster. If you continue to use them, be sure you have your data backed up, which you should of course be doing regardless, but especially true for those disks. Are they really IBM, or are they Hitachi. If they are IBM disks, I'm surprised they haven't imploded already.

 

[Codesmith]

It was funny - I wanted to move the whole computer case to storage closet and extend the monitors via CAT5 ( around 35 feet )( yeah it is doable! ).

How do exactly do you extend your monitor via a CAT 5 cable?

Thats something I might want to try.

I keep my 3 Window Gaming PC on my destktop, I got it slienced down to a pleasant hum. Its hooked up to my home theater system and is just quiet enough that I can't hear if from my couch.

Hardest part was silencing the 6000 RPM chipset fan. It had a nasty high pitch whine, but its right under the 16x PCIe slot. I ended up using a Zalman Passive Chipset cooler, with the fins cut to make room for my video card. It was running pretty hot so I ended up using a silent 80mm fan at a 45 degree angle pointed at the heat sink held in place by SATA and power cables.

 

[Pain]

I've seen devices that do KVM extenstions over network, but I've never used it.

 

[polishruben]

hey man, it is done by using this:

http://www.geocities.com/dougburbidge/vgaovercat5.html

and..

http://www.myhometheater.homestead.com/vgacable.html
( great site )

 

[polishruben]

and one more question - what do you guys think about this chart? does it make any sense ? Does it make sense to do backups via usb2 ( or firewire ? )

Oh, and I went ahead and got 3 raptors 74gb ( 16mb buffer ) - ( 139 each, new ). I saw the comment about getting the 36 but the price difference between 36 and 74 was so minimal that I went ahead and got 74..

i hope I will be satisfied.
this is my first time dealing with raptors.

chart link