WD Raptor

[Dr. No]

Does anyone here have a Western Digital Raptor in their G5?? I was thinking of getting one, but some people say they are too loud. But then again some say it is surprisingly quiet... Some advice would be nice.

 

[Sun Baked]

Take a look at the sustained transfer rate, and see if one of the bigger drives may suit your needs a little better.

You are giving up quite a bit of space for a 10-15MB/sec increase in mechanical transfer rate -- and most all drives will transfer at the same rate when the data is in the cache.

If you really need the speed a RAID may work better, all depends on how critical that extra bit of speed is, the seek time, and/or how well the cache is tuned to your specific use (the cache tuning can may or break you.)

 

[Dr. No]

Which type of RAID??

 

[psycho bob]

I have a 74Gb Raptor in my G5 and noise is not an issue the standard 160Gb unit (Dual 2.5) is noisier. Whilst it is the fastest drive overall the latest 16mb cache models come mighty close whilst offering far higher capacities at a lower price. Think about it very carefully.

 

[Sun Baked]

Which type of RAID??

All depends, if you have an iMac G5 -- your choices are limited. And a Raptor (or another drive with a high mechanical transfer limit) may be all you can do.

If you have a PowerMac G5 -- you have quite a few more options. But once you get past a simple stripe of the 2 internal SATA drives and a FW800 RAID, and look at adding a SCSI/SATA card you may lose the ability to sleep the machine.

 

[aquajet]

I had the 36gb WD Raptor in my sawtooth G4; to my ear, it wasn't any louder than the 120gb WD Caviar that I installed next to it. Both are very quiet compared to drives from a few years ago.