150GB Raptor announced

[Pradeep]

http://theinquirer.net/?article=28577

The WD1500AH is a model "for gamers", while the enterprise version is known under the name WD1500AD and comes with TLER (Time Limited Error Recovery) marchitecture.

Also, the drives support SATA-II and NCQ marchitectures.

 

[time]

The price quoted in the article is completely ridiculous - more than 8 times the cost per gigabyte of a 7200rpm SATA drive. :boom:

 

[Explorer]

...which probably means that it's 8 times as good.


Given that 2006 is here, a 150 GB Raptor was inevitable. But, Western Digi is really a whole generation behind everyone else, since 10kRPM SCSI hard drives have been available for a year with capacities up to 300 GB (and 450 GB due later in 2006).

 

[sechs]

The price quoted in the article is completely ridiculous - more than 8 times the cost per gigabyte of a 7200rpm SATA drive.

You can get a current generation 147GB 10k SCSI drive for less. You could probably get a host bus adapter and cable, and still pay less.

Another reason that Western Digital has no place in the enterprise?

 

[CityK]

SR has their review....I haven't read it yet. Will do so in a little while.

 

[Will Rickards]

I read the review. Performance is outstanding for single users.
Price is practically out of this world as mentioned previously.
But I suppose they have to recoup their R&D costs somehow.

 

[ddrueding]

People always tend to pay ridiculous amounts for "the best" - whatever that is. This is the best SATA drive. It's not the best 10k rpm drive, but I would pay more to avoid putting a SCSI card in my machine.

 

[Will Rickards]

According to the SR review it is the best performing 10K rpm drive for single users, SCSI included. It is only in gaming performance and using 15K rpm SCSI drives that it is bested for single user performance.

 

[sechs]

Folks in the RAID 0 crowd have never had a sense of what really was good....

 

[Anathor21]

Just in case you are looking to pick one up today... (their model number is WD1500ADFD but it does look like it is the same drive... )

NewEgg has it for $295 +5 S/H (note Limit one per customer so I guess you won't get to set it up in a RAID from them!)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822136012

Enjoy!

 

[Mercutio]

Why do you hate your data so much, Anathor21?

 

[Anathor21]

Just sharing random data I found... I'm not really in the market to pay $2/Gb for a drive these days... Now I do remember when I was excited to buy my first drive for $1/Mb (it was a WD 340Mb IDE drive as I recall...).

 

[Mercutio]

Let us all be thankful that you haven't taken leave of your sense, then.

 

[Santilli]

SATA seems to be by far the most reasonable price, for a removeable drive, hotswap setup. While SCSI isn't as bad as it used to be, actually, about 50% cheaper if you shop, SATA size for dollar is hard to beat.

The 250 gig maxtor external USB 2 just arrived, so, it will be pressed into back up service asap. 135 bucks, external housing, and drive. You can't beat newegg with a stick, sometimes...

gs

 

[Handruin]

A while back I was looking into an SATA + USB external drive enclosure. That seems like a nice alternative for higher performance in an external drive with the flexibility of using it on someone else's system if need be. They offer a back-plate to run one of your internal SATA to external SATA. I don't belive it's true "eSATA", just an implementation of internal SATA out the back of your PC.

 

[Santilli]

USB is by far the most common interface, so, the choice is kind of cool.
Looks like these guys are targeting the mac market, by their "cool" prices.

I've looked long and hard at swapable interfaces beside scsi, and the SATA
Hot swap box from Granite Digital looks great, for pros. It's 59 dollars.

http://www.granitedigital.com/catalog/pg51_hot-swapinternalsystem.htm

For my needs, I can't help but think an external, USB 2 drive is a much cheaper way to go.

However, for my one work station, SATA hot swap drives would be GREAT or movies I've ripped to disk, and want to watch on my computer, rather then using the DVD player. May put that on the list since the port saver card seems to be working great.

Do you think SATA will become as popular as USB, with front mounting on cases, etc.?

gs

 

[Handruin]

There is a bit of a premium for that coolgear external case, but it has two things I like. One being both SATA and USB2.0, and the other is that the power supply is internal; no damn power brick to deal with. I haven't seen it reviewed anywhere so I don't even know if it performs well.

That swap box is nice, but it isn't as handy as the external case. It seems you'd need the mounting rails and interface to use it on another machine.

I sincerely doubt an external SATA connection will become popular. As you can see from the lack of choices available, there isn't really any demand for it. Only us technoboobs like playing with this sort of thing. eSATA is still relatively new, and once again, I don't see many components using it. I would be very happy is some day they start adding an eSATA connection to the back I/O plate. That would be a nice feature for those of us who would like to do this sort of thing, but I doubt we'll see it, at least not for a long time.

 

[Handruin]

This is another interesting point I hadn't thought of with regards to using the normal internal SATA connection, externally.

http://www.sata-io.org/esata.asp

The external connector and cable are designed for over five thousand insertions and removals while the internal connector is only specified to withstand fifty.

So it sounds like it might be a bad idea to try and continuously use an internal SATA connection for an external device. The cable (which is rather flimsy) won't withstand the common use.

 

[Mercutio]

Some Gigabyte motherboards come with a plate to allow internal SATA drives to be used externally. It's just a small PCB that two SATA and one molex cable plug into, with female ports on the other side.

 

[Handruin]

That's good to know about gigabyte. It sounds like the exact same thing coolgear has, which I linked to above. After reading the issues with connector durability, it may not be the best choice for an external drive. I guess if I'm careful with it there should be little problems, but I've read people breaking off the connectors...

 

[CityK]

This is another interesting point I hadn't thought of with regards to using the normal internal SATA connection, externally.

http://www.sata-io.org/esata.asp

The external connector and cable are designed for over five thousand insertions and removals while the internal connector is only specified to withstand fifty.

So it sounds like it might be a bad idea to try and continuously use an internal SATA connection for an external device. The cable (which is rather flimsy) won't withstand the common use.

I wouldn't have thought about that either.

Internal cable: Oh yeah! That's it. Oh yeah! Ummmmm, that's it. Oh yeah! Oh Baby! Ohhhhhhhhhh Yeah!
End user: That's it ? Fifty lousy insertions and your done. Bastard

 

[CityK]

On a more serious note: what about considerations for cable length. IIRC, the current internal SATA is supposed to be spec'ed for a metre. That's not going to leave much end to the rope on the outside of the case to play with.

 

[mubs]

End user: That's it ? Fifty lousy insertions and your done. Bastard

That's what I was thinking too. They are trying to build up a revenue stream.

 

[mubs]

This is another interesting point I hadn't thought of with regards to using the normal internal SATA connection, externally.

http://www.sata-io.org/esata.asp

The external connector and cable are designed for over five thousand insertions and removals while the internal connector is only specified to withstand fifty.

So it sounds like it might be a bad idea to try and continuously use an internal SATA connection for an external device. The cable (which is rather flimsy) won't withstand the common use.

This shouldn't be an issue if you're using the backplate / PCI bracket (bottom right in the pic); the cable from that would be plugged in once into the onboard SATA port and left there, and the external SATA device would then be plugged in and out of the port on the outside of the bracket, which hopefully is an external SATA connector designed for repetitive insertions and removals.