Couldn't Resist buying a 74 gig raptor for 80 bucks and set up a XP/Vista dual boot. In another thread Hairy Coo and Markymoo, suggested buying the WD 640 of which I purchased two and am very happy with them. Is the raptor actually slower than the WD 640? Could any of the knowledgable fellas here have a look at the graphs and give their opions? Raptor WD 640 Gig
It understandable you bought a Raptor as they were very expensive compared to other drives a few years ago, and considered the gold standard. They cheaper now for a reason they getting on abit, many desktop drives have better technical innards, faster transfer rate, better firmware and quieter. The raptor has a great access and seek time though and popular in pairs for a faster system RAID. Even though the Raptor has the lower access time the Western Digi's use just 2 big platters only. Better for transferring larger files. I would of got another 640 and RAIDED all 3 together to bring the seek and access time down that way. Alot have been happy with the 640. In fact the faster drives now can be the quietest like the WD 640's or Samsung F1 Spinpoints and do in tests. I am using one in a HTPC and i cant hear it up close. I was going to buy the WDGreen power drive but the faster drive are quiet enough for a very quiet system. Due to the low seek times of the Raptors there ideal in a RAID for a slightly faster system and ideal for small files. If you got it cheap no loss at all, it still a respectable drive and really solidly built that last yearsss. Just make sure you cool it as they can run very hot. I could fry an egg on top of mine.
Notice the Raptors performance drops off at 20% from the edge of the platters, so to maximize the performance make the first partition 15GB or under that way as the drive fills up it wont lower in performance unless you fill it upto the brim which you should never do. Goodnight.
btw the lastest is this WD VelociRaptor It costs around £240 for 300gb This Samsung spinpoint F1 1TB is just as fast and alot cheaper £75 for the same price as the new raptor you can get 3tb worth of samsung spinpoint which are also really fast
I know what you mean by couldn't resist. I wanted a drive with reasonable speed which produced little or no heat for C: so picked up this cheap SSD £76.36
I heard the Samsung SpinPoint F1 have high failure rates. I'm still debating whether to buy an OEM internal or an external hard drive. The OEM internal drives are cheaper, however, I'm seeing a lot of DOA complains due to poor packaging. External drives always come in a retail box, so I'm thinking they have added protection.
nah the high failure rates arent true. samsung make very high quality hard drives. there is no proof they have higher failure rates. tons of people at hexus forums have them and no issues. was £100 not long ago. earlier this year they cost around £200. its a bargain now.
Do you know if they have the OEM or retail? I know Samsung makes quality products; the failure-rates that many customers reported were probably due to poor packaging.
Hello, they all brought from scan as you can read full samsung 3 year warrrenty. i dont know what country you live in so i dont know if you can buy from scan or not. the hard drive in my old pc is from scan and was packaged well.
Samsung don't have the reputation of the best quality but they do come with the 3 year warranty. Overall Samsung are a drive worthy of using now.
Unfounded rumours spread by Matrox and WD ? I have loads of Samsung and had no problems. Then again I've had load of Matrox, wd and no problems.
