Raptors really worth it?

[Adcadet]

hey crew -
is the newer WD Raptor (740GD) worth the price (~$215 US) over the older model (~$115 US). It's 74 GBs vs. 36, but my boot/OS drive doesn't need much more than 9 GB. Think I would notice the difference over my old Cheetah 18 XL for heavy office stuff? Now that I'm using my desktop much more, it feels a bit pokey and I'm wondering if the HD's are why. It's a MSI K8T Neo, 512MB DDR, Athlon 64 3000+. Perhaps more RAM would be a better use of my money. Thoughts?

 

[sechs]

If you want a high-tech doorstop, I'd say that it might be a good choice. I wouldn't use a Western Digital drive to wipe my nose, even if it didn't hurt to so do.

Your drive is a bit old, but lots of things can make a system seem "pokey."

 

[Mercutio]

Check the For Sale forum. Couple people have offered X15s recently, if you really want speed.

Raptors (sorry Mickey) mostly seem to be an expensive mistake. Just ask ddrueding.

 

[ddrueding]

Wow, sechs' anatomy changed as I switched from reading the thread to previewing it. No matter, it's a pointless flame anyway.

I don't have a single bad thing to say about Raptors, I'm a really big fan. They are very fast and quite cheap considering the onboard S-ATA of your K8T-Neo board.

My issues of late had nothing to do with Raptors, rather with my gross underestimation of the amount of disk space I would requre. And if I had gone with the 74GB instead of the 36GB, that wouldn't be an issue anyway.

 

[Adcadet]

Check the For Sale forum. Couple people have offered X15s recently, if you really want speed.

Raptors (sorry Mickey) mostly seem to be an expensive mistake. Just ask ddrueding.

Is there something else I should know about? Since I'm currently running my OS and apps off a 9 GB drive and have a 120 GB drive (plus more on my wife's on the network) 36 or 74 GB seems pretty sufficient.

 

[Adcadet]

I've also been having issues with my SCSI setup. One of my 5-year old Cheetahs died about two months ago, and one died a few days ago. So my large SCSI collection is dwindling and I'm wondering if I should get rid all my SCSI stuff altogether.

 

[Clocker]

Andy-
I recommend eBaying all your SCSI stuff while it is still worth something and just going IDE or SATA. I left SCSIville a long time ago and never noticed a big difference stepping down from an X15-36LP with a pair of 10K cheetahs backing it up. A couple things are a little slower with IDE but I never noticed anything in general desktop usage and I'm much happier with the simplicity of my set-up.

I'd skip the Raptor and just go with some 7K250s or the Samsumg drive so many people here like. I don't think the $100 difference is worth the price at all. I've never owned a Raptor but someone would have a hard time convincing me they are worth the price premium when compared to a 7K250 or one of those nice Samsungs.

C

 

[Adcadet]

Thanks for the tip. I'm thinking I will. My stuff isn't the loudest on earth, but it's definitely not quiet. I also don't like the idea of only having one SCSI controller (vs. having an IDE or SATA controller on multiple computers around the house) Any thoughts on what I should be asking for my SCSI stuff? Some details with my guesses

Adaptec 3950U2B dual channel U2LVD - $130? (Hypermicro has the U320 version for $255)
2 * Seagate Cheetah 18XL 9.1 GB (ST39204LW, right around warranty expiration IIRC) - $75 each? (new looks to be ~$150)
1* Quantum Atlas IV 9.1 GB - $30 or free if you'll take my other stuff?
2 * 68-pin cables, each supports 2-drives. 24" long IIRC - $25 each?

 

[sechs]

That'a bit of wishful thinking.

I can't manage to sell my two-year old 15k.3 for $100 -- less than half of what I paid for it.

 

[LunarMist]

Yes, I think the 18XL could be the cause of slowdowns, but you should be able to find the bottlenecks in your system. Many newer IDE drives and all newer SCSI drives will outperform the 18XL. (That was the old drive that arrived just prior too the original X15 IIRC.) I would pick up a cheap 18GB 15K.3 and swap it.

I have a 740GD and am underwhelmed. Despite fine performance as a boot drive, performance in content creation applications can be lacking or inconsistent. Given the cost and capacity, the drive is in no man's land. It is too large for a boot drive, but too small to store a meaningful amount of data. FWIW, I continue to boot from the 15K.3 and use the WD740GD for work in progress. I would not buy another one.

 

[MaxBurn]

I felt a difference going from a WD1000JB to the WD740GD. I went to the 74 for the fractionally better seek times (why not). My friend has a 74 raptor too, and he had problems getting the motherboard to see it (K8USA known problem) and an RMA on the motherboard fixed that. I was expecting it to be louder than the 100 but it's actually quieter which is nice. Nothing wrong with the other twelve WD hard drives that I have between these two computers either. I had to RMA a dead drive three years ago but I think that's to be expected with this many drives.

 

[Tea]

Adcadet:

(1) You wlll see a speed increase with a Raptor - simply because your SCSI drives are so old. Even if Raptors arent all that fast (I can't say myself, never seen one in the flesh), they are stil going to be a lot faster than your 5 year old SCSI drives.

(2) You would see a substantially bigger increase by going to the latest X15 - but that's big bikkies.

(3) Size schmize ... 36GB is plenty for a boot drive. Hell, my three main desktop machines boot off 18GB drives, and that's heaps big enough. (They are all X15s, 2 of the original model, 1 of the 36LP here at home.)

(4) What you really need is a 15K drive at a reasonable price. You already have the controller card for SCSI, so that big price barrier doesn't apply. And, it just so happens that I can get you a three year old Seagate X15 for $120. Call me.

 

[Tea]

Sechs: will you take $80 for your drive?

 

[Tea]

Max: what's NRA, CDA, COG, and AMA. OK, I know AMA, that's the Australian Medical Association, or a polite word for the doctors' union. But I don't know what the other three are.

 

[Clocker]

While the Raptor (and any other newer SATA/IDE drive) will definitely have higher STR when compared to the older SCSI drives he's using, I doubt that will translate into very much of a 'felt' speed difference given the other nice specifications of the SCSI units.

Nonetheless, I highly doubt the difference in 'feel' by 'upgrading' to Raptors will be any different than if he upgraded to the current Samsung or 7K250 drives (for a lot less $).

A lot of the perceived difference could just be the result of a fresh install of WIndows (if that is done).

Given the crappy warranties we see these days, it probably makes the best sense just to buy 'mid-pack' drives for dirt cheap prices and upgrade them annually or whenever you find something that offers good value and performance. JMHO.

C

 

[sechs]

Sechs: will you take $80 for your drive?

If we're talking US$, yes, it would be nice to get it out of my drawer....

 

[Santilli]

SATA is attractive. Granite Digital offers some very cheap controllers, I don't know if they are bootable, and the cables are much cheaper then SCSI.

That said, wait until WD has competition from Seagate with SATA drives, and what the specs are going to be. Part of the brilliance of WD is being first to market in this area, not the quality of the product.

I see no reason, for the cost, the Raptor couldn't have similar seek times
to the X 15's, and, a similar warranty. Mercutio had something to say about that in another thread.

With a dual channel LVD card, I still don't see much sense in dumping scsi for sata. You already have a good card, good cables, and terminator, so the expensive part is done. A current generation X 15.3 is expensive, but they do last 5 years, and Seagate doesn't pull any bull with their warranties. So I'll second the suggestion for buying an 18 gig boot drive,
X 15.3, and going with that, or better yet, the 36 gig.

Buy one of those, depending upon how much room your programs take up,
and buy a Samsung 5400 to back data up too.

I've been looking high and low for a backup system, and SATA currently looks better then IDE. While the IDE drives are cheaper, the sata
components appear less expensive, with a higher data transfer ceiling, and
External boxes as well.
The only problem I have is I have firewire on both macs and pcs, and I don't really feel like buying SATA cards for a bunch of different computers.

As for your system, I would suggest about 1 gig of RAM for XP or for 2000.
Could you get a bit more specific about why it seems slow?
I'm using a first generation Cheetah as a boot disk in a mac, and it doesn't seem all that slow. Access times, superior processor on the LVD board,
and a superior standard to ide, along with excellent algorithims have always given excellent results for a boot OS.

You can always start with a dual-capable burner but use single-layer media and upgrade to dual when the media prices drop.

I would like to know how much of your drive is used, and what programs you are using that make it seem slow? What OS?

In other words, if speed is your problem, at what functions is it a problem?
If it's an os problem, then access time is going to be the trick, and buying a
15.3 X 15 will be a better solution then going to a nearly half as fast, access time wise, raptor.

If it's OS functions, the above will take care of the random seeks windows does, however, more ram does help. A gig of ram is a noticeable difference in my Athlon 1.4 ghz.

Also, I've noticed using task manager that ide tends to use considerably more processor in data transfer then scsi. 10% vs. 30% on my rig, on moving data from my boot drive to an XL 18 on a 29160N card, and the
Maxtor 160 Gig Diamond Max 9, I use for dual backups.

It could also be that the programs you are using are just really sucktacular.

Roxios burning programs are amazing. They use 10% of the processor power, average, on my rig, yet they manage to freeze the machine, or take it to a crawl, so I can't do anything else, and they are set to normal priority.

Photoshop 6.1 used to take 100% of my processor power when scanning with a Canon 1220U scanner. That same operation takes 10%, or less, of my dual processor Xeon rig.

Noise wise, the X 15.3's are considerably quieter then the drives you are using.

 

[Bozo]

The X15s are $184 at Newegg. The Raptors are $111. If you already have all the SCSI hardware, it would be worthwhile going for the X15.
Is your pc already SATA compatable?


Bozo :mrgrn:

 

[Adcadet]

yup, already SATA-compatible. I've got an onboard controller, as does my wife's PC. Unfortunately, I've only got one SCSI controller.

 

[Adcadet]

I may have found a clue. For kicks I took my WinXP's swap disk off of my second Cheetah 18XL and installed Server 2003. Much snappier, but that may all be UI stuff. The interesting part is that in WinXP my CD burner on the primary IDE channel is set to DMA if possible but is running PIO only. In S2003 it's UDMA2. When In XP when I burn a CD at 40X, they CPU usage runs 30-50% for Nero alone. Haven't burned in S2003 yet. Maybe I'll keep 2003 around.

(getting to Greg's question), a major slow-down is when I go to save something and I hit the drop down box and the computer has to think for a good long while before it seems to know where everything is. Could this be because it's just searching through all the drives, including the mapped network drives from my wife's PC? Is there anyway to speed this part up other than taking CD's out of the optical drives?

 

[Adcadet]

Programs that I use:

stuff in the system tray
Symantec Antivirus
Zone Alarm
ATi hydravision

Programs
Moz Firefox (email) - always open
Moz Thunderbird - usually open
Winamp - depends on mood
MS Frontpage or Macromedia Dreamweaver (depending on my mood)
Real Player with 2XAV (for Lectures on Line) - I usually don't run much else when watching lectures
MS Word
GAIM
Mosby's Drug Consult (runs through IE)
Photoshop
Graphpad Prism (statistics program)
SPSS (stats program) - I'm rarely doing much else while SPSSing
WS_FTP LE (FTP prog)

 

[Adcadet]

The X15s are $184 at Newegg. The Raptors are $111. If you already have all the SCSI hardware, it would be worthwhile going for the X15.
Is your pc already SATA compatable?


Bozo :mrgrn:

Why not go with the Maxtor Atlas 15K for $179 (Hypermicro)? Why all the Seagate love? (not that I don't like Seagate - their RMA process has been very pleasant to me)

 

[Adcadet]

Hmm.. SR claims "Overall, for non-server use, Western Digital's Raptor WD740GD is the fastest single hard disk one can buy regardless of spindle speed, interface, or price. The fact that it is so quiet, runs much cooler, and remains significantly less expensive than its SCSI counterparts is simply icing on the cake. Make no mistake about it- the Raptor WD740GD is the drive for power users, period."

Really? Those are pretty strong words. So let's see...I mostly do "desktop/workstation stuff," and very little multi-user (unless you count using multiple apps, which for all I know might almost count). In the Legacy Performance area the Raptor 740GD fell behind the Atlas 15K in the ZD Business and High-End benchmarks by 12% and 4%, respectively. But those are "old" tests, and I like to believe the SR hype about their newer methodology. Comparing the 740GD to the Atlas 15K, we see the Raptor splits the benchmarks against the Atlas

Office: 2.4% slower than the Atlas
Gaming: 5.3% slower than the Atlas
Bootup: 9.5% faster than the Atlas
High-End: 2.9% faster than the Atlas

And of course the multiuser comparisons are pretty clear - almost 40% slower than the Atlas. But maybe those should be ignored in my case.

So how can the Atlas be "the drive for power users, period"??? Might it be the questionable reliability database? Maybe, since there is nothing reported abou the Atlas and the Raptor is "more reliable than 8% of drives in the survey that meet a certain minimum floor of participation" (wow, talk about a nebulous statement, but hey, you can't disclose your methodology now, can you). Maybe Eugene is assuming the Atlas is less reliable than 92% of the drives in the survery. Could it be due to heat and noise? Perhaps by "power users" Eugene means those in California who are expecting more blackouts and thus need to run their own generators. And you don't want to hear your beloved HD above the peaceful ROAR of your generator, I guess. And maybe the Raptor gets more RPM's per watt of power.

So what exactly did Eugene mean by "period"? An interval of time? No, the Atlas was out well before the Raptor. Was he referring to the punctuation mark? A sequence of elements on the periodic table? An instance or occurance of menstruation? Is SATA that much better for periods of menstruation....well, I guess the smaller cables might introduce less oxygen into the vagina and thus be less likely to cause toxic shock syndrome. And PubMed did show a few hits for "menorrhagia + scussy" and "menorrhagia + scussy + Ra". But I doubt that's what Eugene meant. He couldn't have meant to imply an expression fo decision or finality, could he? Tell me this is not what he meant to say.

 

[Mercutio]

Uh, 'cause WD advertises at SR?

 

[Santilli]

Uh, 'cause WD advertises at SR?

"Bang, bang, bang>"

Mercuitio hitting nail on the head again.

SR require money to function. No income, no storagereview.com

I think I went down this road one time before. :evil:

Adcadet: feel free to buy the WD drives. I'll stick with Seagate. They have never lied to me, they have never given me poor service. Seagate techs have even offered unsolicitated private emails to help me solve some of my problems.
They have always kept, and honored, their warranties since the first drive I bought from them.

If Eugene and Davin would have used Seagate Cheetahs for Storagereview, it's likely the forum data would not have been lost..
:wink: :evil:

Seagates drives have functioned beyond expectations, and, their warranty support has been prompt, and unquestionable, at least with me.

I also think one could argue that given the costs of scsi cables, terminators, and cards, that adds a bit of validity to Eugenie's statement.
Not much, but at least a bit to the statement. I have noticed that the faster the processor, board, and the more ram, the less of an impact the drive speed has on the system. Also given that 95% of the world is never going to use scsi, blowing smoke up that 95%'s rear ends, and telling them they have the best, and buy from my sponsor is a pretty good move.

I will add a caveat to the above. I have noticed huge speed increases in going from a single X 15 to dual raid 0 X 15's, and an even bigger, really noticeable jump, using dual X 15's on each channel, but in one big raid 0 four drive array. Now, I had one drive failure, with 4 drives, in about 4-5 years, and it was replaced promptly.

I could argue that Seagate drives, with a real 5 year warranty, and drives that rarely need it, over a long period of time, represent a cheaper solution then questionable SATA drives, with no reliability record, and, at least according to my favorite source, Mercutio, questionable warranty procedures.

But, the best thing I can suggest is think back, and remember how fast your scsi drives were, in comparision to everything else, when you bought them.

Perhaps not much has changed. Also, I wonder about the quality of the
SATA chipset on your motherboard. My experience has been that ide and
other onboard systems, on even Asus motherboards, are usually not very high quality. The result is high cpu usage, and below standard transfer rates. So that attractive port you see, might have a pos chipset, and preform below industry standard. My dell did, so did my beige mac, both on ide and scsi/pci.
I KNOW your Adaptec card has a decent chipset.

Still, you just go right ahead buy those raptors, and keep us posted on your experience. Perhaps your athlon processor is fast enough to cover up a bad chipset on your motherboard, and you won't notice it.
Nothing I saw in your programs, other then Symantec and the Firewall program, give me pause. Why don't you open up Task Manager, play with the different applications, and processor usage, and get back to us on what is using your processor?

Your complaints sound like OS related stuff, and that usually means more ram, to get it off the pagefile.

s


s

 

[Tannin]

given that 95% of the world is never going to use scsi, blowing smoke up that 95%'s rear ends, and telling them they have the best, and buy from my sponsor is a pretty good move.

Thunk*

-------------------------------------------

*Thunk: the sound of a hammer hitting a nail on the head.

 

[Adcadet]

wow Greg, you really do love Seagate. Not that I don't think very highly of them.

 

[Adcadet]

oh, and I thouht the massive crash at SR a while back was purely user failure (he "dropped" the DB) and unrelated to hardware entirely. I know since I was IMing with Davin around that time (though it's possible I've forgotten, but I doubt it).

 

[Buck]

The last time I did some research on this SR subject, WD didn't give them any money - it was Seagate that made a nice donation.

 

[time]

I can't imagine why anyone who's about to delete an entire database would want to check very, very carefully that they're not logged into a live database with three years of unbacked-up data.

Heavens, I'd do it with my eyes closed - that's more than enough due care.

My career in the military wouldn't influence me in the slightest. Hell, wedding parties just have to take their chances along with Osama.

 

[Clocker]

Wedding party? What a laugh:

US Sources Note So-Called 'Wedding Party' Attack In Iraq Was Legitimate
From GIS (Global Information System) sources in Washington and Baghdad.
US intelligence and military sources confirmed to GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily that the air strike on an Iraqi guerilla site near the Syrian border on the night of May 19-20, 2004, was against a legitimate target which had been arranged to look like a wedding party. The assumption by GIS analysts was that either the US was lured into striking the target in order to create a propaganda incident for Iraqi opposition elements, or that the “wedding party” cover was designed to deter US military interest in the site.
There seems little doubt that Iraqi opposition elements were immediately prepared for the incident and to publicize it. On May 20, 2004, only hours after the air strike, the Doha, Qatar-based al-Jazeera satellite television network noted: “More than 40 Iraqis have been killed in a US helicopter bomb attack on a huge tent where a wedding party was in progress. The attack took place in the small town of Qaim in Iraq's western desert bordering Syria early on Tuesday [May 19, 2004] ... APTN [Associated Press Television News] syndicated footage of a mass grave being filled with the casualties, including children.” The report pointedly compared the attack with an accidental attack by the US Air Force of a wedding party in Afghanistan in July 2002.
In fact the strike took place at 03.00hrs on the morning of May 20, 2004.
There was some suggestion that video footage of a wedding which was released immediately after the strike may have been shot the week before. US officials said immediately that the activities which were observed, and which prompted the strike, were incompatible with activities of a wedding party.
Sources who inspected the post-strike target site noted:
*Weddings are traditionally held on Thursdays in Iraq to take advantage of Friday as a day of rest; the raid took place on a Tuesday night (03.00 Wednesday morning). The Iraqis who claimed that the event was a wedding said that the event had started on the Monday;
*The only permanent dwelling at the site held large stocks of food, bedding (for approx. 300 people), and substantial quantities of medical supplies, ammunition and weapons, as well as what appeared to be document forging laboratory;
*Meat found at the site was still frozen solid; it was not prepared for a wedding feast and there were no stocks of dishes, plates, etc. Contrary to media reports, no "Nuptial Tent" was found and a 1km area around the site was searched;
*No evidence was found of any means of support for the house (such as sheep farming which is most common in that area)
*All evidence pointed to a smuggler way-station, and the site fitted perfectly the description of several other found in the past;
*The alleged "wedding guests" (killed in the strike) were almost all men of military age. There were only a couple of women, no elders at all, and only one child (wounded);
*All the deceased were dressed as city dwellers, not bedouin or tribespeople, who would hold a wedding at such a location;
*All of the deceased were "sterilized" clean; none had any form of ID on them at all. Only IDs found were in a “nice neat stack inside the house”, and then quite a few less of those than there were people at the site;
*Weapons found were varied and included RPGs which — unlike handguns and rifles are not fired during festive celebrations — and there were also military binoculars, and IED (improvised explosive devices);
*Substantial quantities of clothing, prepackaged in pants and shirt sets were found;
*No wedding gifts or decorations were found at the site; no food was set out or left over, and the money recovered was all in the pockets of the "guests".
GIS analysis: All indications were that the site which was hit was, indeed, a way-station for moving fighters and logistical support to or from Syria. Given the major, and growing, involvement of Bosnian Islamist fighters moving through Syria into Iraq, it should be taken for granted that the extensive Bosnian experience in manipulating imagery for psyops purposes would be used when possible. The Bosnian Islamists on numerous occasions during the Bosnia fighting until 1995 staged attacks on their own citizens in order to create incidents which could be blamed on their Serb opponents. It would be highly likely that the game-plan to issue a cover for any such attack by US forces against border way-stations would have been prepared in advance — including, for example, the videotape — in order to gain a propaganda advantage. However, more significantly, by making the strike so politically controversial, the effect of the psychological operation would be to deter Coalition commanders from attacking such sites in the future.

Wall Street Journal
May 27, 2004
Pg. 20

 

[Buck]

Oh yeah, and other news about Seagate, they're laying off 2,900 employees.

 

[Santilli]

That's not good.

s

 

[Santilli]

Bosnian Islamist fighters moving through Syria into Iraq, it should be taken for granted that the extensive Bosnian experience in manipulating imagery for psyops purposes would be used when possible. The Bosnian Islamists on numerous occasions during the Bosnia fighting until 1995 staged attacks on their own citizens in order to create incidents which could be blamed on their Serb opponents.

How nice. These are the folks Clinton supported...

 

[Mercutio]

The last time I did some research on this SR subject, WD didn't give them any money - it was Seagate that made a nice donation.

So I was imagining all those "DriveZilla" ads on SR about a year ago?
Hopefully, the 3000 people Seagate laid off were the unmotivated bastards responsible for their ATA products.

 

[Buck]

So I was imagining all those "DriveZilla" ads on SR about a year ago?

Nope, I'm not talking advertisements, I'm talking about direct solicitations.

 

[Santilli]

wow Greg, you really do love Seagate. Not that I don't think very highly of them.

Seagate produces excellent products, backed them up, and helped when they didn't have too. I've always felt money on their drives was well spent, and an excellent value. Granite Digital
is similiar.
Please note I do not use Seagate ide drives, except for laptops.

They are also based right outside of my former home town, Santa Cruz(Scott's Valley).
They are within an hour's drive, or at least one of their offices is.

After my Maxtor/Promise Debacle, I figured the amount of time and money spent on that project would have paid for an 8 drive, scsi raid box.
Try and save a dime sometimes, and it costs you a big dollar.

The mapping drives issue could be you have drives spun down other places, and it takes time to spin up?
I'm not real sure about this one. I've noticed it's not fast, even on my setup, accessing through ethernet, on a Dell 400 mhz P2, at the start.
Once the drive is up, it's passable, but not fast.

As for burning software, I've watched my cpu usage, and, the last time I was using it, the usage wasn't very high, but it pretty much caused unexplained freezes in other programs, in the os, for split seconds. This with priority set at normal.

I've settled on Roxio's CD creator 5, rather then 6, for the same reason.

In other words, I think it's a combination of poor software, and poor onboard chips for your ide stuff that is costing you so much processor time. I notice when I back up to my Quaxtor Diamondmax 9 through the onboard ide chip, that it uses way more processor power then backing up through an adaptec 29160N onto a XL 18.

I tend to be very conservative on computer components. I like to wait out the companies, until adequate competition is present, and time for development has occured. The Raptor is an excellent example of an overpriced product, thanks to consumer demand, and lack of competition.

I'd skip the Raptor and just go with some 7K250s or the Samsumg drive so many people here like. I don't think the $100 difference is worth the price at all. I've never owned a Raptor but someone would have a hard time convincing me they are worth the price premium when compared to a 7K250 or one of those nice Samsungs.

Sounds like good advice to me.

A long time ago, I got into a big argument, because I installed my OS on an old IBM SCSI drive, 7200 rpm. I was really shocked how fast it was, compared to the, spec wise, much faster, Maxtor ide drive I had.

That situation was a drive for drive, fresh install comparision. The only conclusion I could come to, was that the OS really liked the quicker access time, and prefered that over the sustained data transfer rate. Also the superior components used in scsi decrease processor usage, errors, and data transfer time. That was ide vs. scsi.

How does SATA compare, as far as interface quality, and speed, vs. SCSI?

Also keep in mind, Clocker is hitting a really good point. I think as machines get faster and faster, the processor and ram can better cover up storage failings.

I wonder if you wouldn't be better off keeping the os on the Cheetah, and buying more ram?
My Athlon pretty much quit thrashing to disk all together when I went to 1 gig of ram with 2000.

XP might like even more. I'm at 1 gig on this machine, and it has paged up to 400 mb, using Photoshop, and DVD players at the same time.

Perhaps single drives are all getting close enough, and components are getting so fast, and cheap, that the only real noticeable speed gains you are going to get are from multiple drives?

Andy, it sounds like you want to use the drive for backing up both computers? If that's the case, a SATA drive sounds like your only choice.

See Clocker's comments above.

s

 

[Santilli]

Just did a test with my current setup. I used Windows Media Explorer to run the same video file off a Diamondmax Plus 9 160 gig, on the motherboard ide channel, and, the same file off a 10k XL 18, hooked up to the Adaptec 29160N with all my CD roms, and DVD player attached.

There was considerable lag with the Quaxtor, when switching from clip to clip with the drive as a shared drive.

Processor usage is about 11-25%, pagefile at 260 mb. Running trendmicro in the backgrouns, and Windows task manager.

Just switched the drive off of being a shared drive, and no lag in transition from the Diamondmax at all.

It's not noticeably different from the XL 18.
Processor usage is a little less with the XL 18, but in this function, not much.

Perhaps you could speed up your system by taking drives and turning off file sharing when you are not using them for file sharing?

s

 

[Adcadet]

good point Greg about disabling the network drives. I left them unmapped (though easily accessible through a shortcut to "My Network Places" and most of the delays when saving stuff are gone.

And I'm not knocking you for loving Seagate. I'm 3/4 of the way there already myself.

 

[Adcadet]

nope, more insterested in a new boot drive. I have a WD1200JB for large storage, and my wife has a WD2000JB for her mass storage and network backup. Why WD? I haven't had a problem with WD stuff yet, they've performed well, and have been cheap per GB. The IBM/Hitachi's have been more expensive.