Raptors Different Models.. ADFS, ADFD, AHFD????

[FwoGiZ]

Whats the difference between WD1600ADFS and WD1600ADFD? Also why would they do 150gb and then a 160gb one?? Is there something I'm not understanding?.. What would be the difference between WD1500ADFD and WD1600ADFD other than the 10gb dif? Also, are the WD740ADFD the same as the other 150&160 ADFD but with only 74gb?
17451T 150gb????
WD1500AHFD???
So confusing.. and WD website plain sucks!
at least i managed to understand the RTL means retail which is a lil kit to make self install... basically a screwdriver a screw for 10$...

I'm looking to buy 2 HD for Gaming, wanna put em in Raid 0.
I was looking into buying the 2 best drives for gaming and thought that the WD740ADFD would be what I need, am i right?
THanks in advance!!

EDIT: Forgot to tell you guys i have an external Seagate 7200rpm 750gb... so no worries for my mp3s and porn
also, would it be better with 2 barracuda 7200.11 in RAID0? ...

 

[LoneEagle]

If money is not an issue but todays HDD are very good compare to older Raptors.

You could RAID-0 2 Seagate 7200.11 500GB for a much lower price of 2 raptors and would have a lot more storage. You could use the saving for more RAM, better video card or getting more porn for you external drive! :lol:

 

[FwoGiZ]

money isnt important, since its all pretty cheap imo
performance is very important since im planning to play online FPS and i think u REALLLY need good performance for those games... more than any other so yeah..
i cud prolly get my hands on 74raptor for 100$each, or 130ish for 150gb
but as i said, i dont really need the storage.. im lookin for performance
raid0 raptor or raid0 7200.11? wut wud be the dif in performance on a score out of 10?
Tx once again!

 

[FwoGiZ]

i read many things bout raptors vs barracuda 7200.11 but i am still unsure which one would be the best for FPS online games...
my main question remains, what are the differences in all the raptors models

I dont really give a damn bout all the benchmark btw... they might and prolly are not representative of the normal utilisation of HDs by apps, games, etc.

more information if it can help you...
those HDs are gonna be used allthogherther with
Vista
core 2 duo 8500 OCd
GF9 (prolly 9800, when its out obviously) also planning to buy another one, later to SLI
and either 2x2gb ddr2 of ram or maybe 1x4gb ddr3 so i can buy another 4gb later...
dunno what mobo at all (im fully ignorant of mobos..)
tx once again

 

[predaking]

in all honesty if money isn't a factor and you want good performance
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2003240636+1421530856&name=SATA

get one of those sata SSDs, and get a simple 500gig for storage. put your applications/games on the ssd and everything else on the 500 gig.

 

[LiuKang]

SSDs are junk -- the performance gains are negligable, and in some cases non-existant. Look up read/write baselines for these things compared to 10k SATAs and 15k SCSIs... you'll be surprised just how poorly SSDs perform. I would only consider them for a laptop because they run so quietly with a lot less heat.

I'm a big FPS fan (quakewars addicted), and I am always the first guy guy in warmup with my RAID0 raptor setup. Nothing loads faster than these puppies (15k SCSIs excluded)... so it's really good for those games/maps that start the second you join

 

[gwolfman]

performance is very important since im planning to play online FPS and i think u REALLLY need good performance for those games...

What FPS would you be playing? Sorry to burst your bubble but Raptors in or not in RAID 0 will not help in performance for FPS's. I mean, your levels will load faster, but after it's loaded pretty much everything is already in memory and your HDD doesn't do much.

 

[LoneEagle]

What FPS would you be playing? Sorry to burst your bubble but Raptors in or not in RAID 0 will not help in performance for FPS's. I mean, your levels will load faster, but after it's loaded pretty much everything is already in memory and your HDD doesn't do much.

I agree. In on-line gaming, HHD speed is not a big factor. Once the game loaded, it not used that much.

If you have the top for CPU, GFX, RAM, you will be fine.

Will you install Vista 64? 2*2GB will be great.

 

[FwoGiZ]

first of all, tx a lot to all of you who posted help!!! im very grateful
so basically, for online FPS (prolly CS, and maybe GOOD new FPS coming out... I personnaly think CS is still the best!), performance during the game wise, its just not worth it to spend **** of cash since it wont even help much or at all... so i guess id be good with one of those 500gb barracuda 7200.11 right? cheap, good, lotso gbs
well tx a lot! (dont even need to understand all those weird raptors models!!)

 

[troymscott]

well i can tell you a bit about the adfd and ahfd. the difference is that the ahfd has a pretty window so you can see the disk (BIG DEAL). Other wise those drives are identicle. I have never seen the ADFS but if I had to guess that is probably the old raptors that had th 8MB cahce

 

[FrozenGpu]

as long as u believe its money well spent, then it is!

In my current build im running two 15k rpm SAS in raid off a pretty decent LSI logic card it seems to be pretty fast I just hate having to load the raid array every time I startup the pc adds another 15-20, i think to my load time...In my much older athlonxp system I had a pair of 7200 rpm hitachi deskstars i think 80gb a peice on a silicon image chipset raid controller it made the system very responsive and even sped up the startup times, I'm hoesntly a little confused why going from 7200 rpms in a raid 0 seemed very responsive compared to my much more higher end setup where i ahve two 15k rpm dirves on a much better riad controller, and it just doesn't seem as fast.

Well meh, sorry to go on a tangent like that, It doesn't bug me as much it may seem, I probably just haven't optimized my set-up is all.

 

[geofelt]

There is generally no real world(vs. synthetic transfer rate benchmarks) performance advantage to raid of any kind.
Go to www.storagereview.com at this link: http://faq.storagereview.com/tiki-index.php?page=SingleDriveVsRaid0
There are some specific applications that will benefit, but
gaming is not one of them. Even if you have an application which reads one input file sequentially, and writes
it out, you will perform about as well by putting the input on one drive, and the output on the other.

The ADFD raptors have newer microcode and bigger cache; they are a bit better. The storagereview.com link has some good benchmarks od the raptor,scsi, and many types of drives.

The reason the 150gb models seem faster is because the outer cylinders which are faster can hold more data, and tests usually only populate just part of the drive.

 

[FrozenGpu]

Yeah, I remember reading about that a while ago, I justw anetd to build another raid machine, to see if it would get any better, sadly it doesn't.

 

[righteous]

I have 2 Raptors (150 GB) in Raid 0 since last year and while its true they dont offer any performance gain once your games loaded, they do offer the speed boost in every other aspect. While its also true that the newer hard drives with larger caches keep up with the Raptors and are alot cheaper, they are still based on 7200 rpm technology. If you have the money I say go for Raptors or better yet 15,000 rpm Cheetah drives in some sort of Raid configuration. You will not regret it once you have it up and running. I love the fact that from the time I hit my power button to my dektop up and running in less than 20 seconds to being the first one loaded in a MP game online has been money well spent since.

http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i145/Soldier36/DSC02901myspace.jpg

Um how are those drives mounted, or are they just sitting like that?
I was just thinking of doing something similar and want to make sure they are secure from any movement.

 

[nachowarrior]

I skipped by all the bs... except one of the first posts.... today's terabyte drives are AMAZING as far as performance goes... there are a few sub terabyte drives that are just as good (or pretty lose anyway)... but make sure you get the right one... "raptor" is obsolete now, it's riding on the 'name' rather than the performance... you can get massive storage with good performance now... i was impressed myself... i didn't think the "classic" style Harddrive would get to this point even just last year... i figured ssd's would be the ones to take a dump on storage and take the next big leap before this would happen... but i was wrong... amazing what massive amounts of competition does when a company faces a massive investment for a new manufacturing process.

go with 1 terabyte drive, or 2 subs that match the full terabyte performance and raid them if you're set on raid. but however it goes... get the most bang for your buck, because SSD's ARE coming into relevance soon for the enthusiast/mainstream pc buyer/builder. dont' waste your money on the already out of date "raptor" they were the fastest, but then they got nailed by (samsung i think was the first)

 

[JackNaylorPE]

What's the difference ? Cosmetics and little bit of firmware.

http://www.storagereview.com/WD1500ADFD.sr

"The "Raptor 150" (WD1500ADFD) continues the line's tradition as a low-cost alternative to the SCSI drives that dominate the server world. The "Raptor X" caters to the enthusiasts and gamers that have carried the family since its debut.

What's the difference? Cosmetically speaking, the Raptor X (WD1500AHFD) pays homage to the DIY crowd that enjoys things such as clear PC cases with... well, a transparent cover. Though the actual top plate remains a jet-black aluminum compound, the portion that actually sits atop the spindle assembly, constructed from polycarbonate, permits a clear view of the drive's interior. To further the product's unique appearance, WD investigated incorporating an LED into the device but ruled it out due to engineering constraints. The Raptor 150 (WD1500ADFD), on the other hand, features the more staid, standard look that debuted with WD's latest 7200 RPM units."

"The Raptor X is officially specified with a 600,000 hour MTBF while the 150 features a 1.2 million hour claim. Both units receive 24 hours of factory burn-in are backed by 5-year warranties. As attractive as the concept may sound to enthusiasts, the two different versions do not feature significantly differing firmware. Creating and maintaining two code bases would increase overhead and product prices that would not proportionally translate into better performance. Here at least, differences really do extend only skin deep. Thus, given that the drives are mechanically and electronically identical, it should come as no surprise that the unit featuring the more complexly-engineered cover commands a price premium"

The article covers 11 pages and is pretty much "everything you ever wanted to know about the current and past raptors". Seems they being a bit circumspect in that I can't figure out how two drives with identical parts and different firmware can have different MTBF ratings. Then again maybe this is explained near the end as it highlights the reliability drop with the more recent models:

"According to filtered and analyzed data collected from participating StorageReview.com readers, the Western Digital Raptor WD1500 is more reliable than 12% of the other drives in the survey that meet a certain minimum floor of participation.

According to filtered and analyzed data collected from participating StorageReview.com readers, a predecessor of the Western Digital Raptor WD1500, the Western Digital Raptor WD740GD , is more reliable than 94% of the other drives in the survey that meet a certain minimum floor of participation. "

Seems the older model was judged about 8 times "more reliable" than the mew one.

 

[nachowarrior]

yeah, forgot about the waranty on the raptor... but you'll get a new hd in 2-3 years anyway most likely. after ssd's get a bit faster and price comes down.

 

[FrozenGpu]

or the fusion io becomes more affordable than $30 a gb!!!!

SSD's are overhyped...except for the laptop market [no movable parts, makes sense for laptops]!

Other than that, the fusin io is one of the best solutions to hard drives ever.

P.S. if u dont know what the fusion io is, look it up!!!

 

[LoneEagle]

or the fusion io becomes more affordable than $30 a gb!!!!

SSD's are overhyped...except for the laptop market [no movable parts, makes sense for laptops]!

Other than that, the fusin io is one of the best solutions to hard drives ever.

P.S. if u dont know what the fusion io is, look it up!!!

WOW!!! Thanks for the information.

If our company need a fast solution, we will lookt at it!

http://www.fusionio.com/