I have a couple year old 20" C2D white iMac. Is there any reason I couldn't replace the standard 7200 rpm drive with a Western Digital Velociraptor. I've heard they do wonders for the kind of work I do so would really like to have one.
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Velociraptor 10k hd in iMac?
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seems to be working, look at this thread: 24" iMac with 300gb VelociRaptor
Though, that's a 24 inch..not sure if that makes a difference. Wait for more responses.
Though, that's a 24 inch..not sure if that makes a difference. Wait for more responses.
Hellhammer
Moderator emeritus
HDs are history, get a SSD instead. I wouldn't use Raptors because they can cause overheat problems.
LMAO, says who? Still plenty of tasks out there where a good old HD will beat an SSD. Not to mention the enormous price per GB difference between the two. SSD's are for early adopters with specific types of I/O workload; they're not the answer for everyone. Not yet at least.
Agree on the heat though, a Velociraptor needs active cooling. Not sure what the airflow inside an iMac is like, but if it cools the HD using only convection, I would not put a 10k drive in it...
nuckinfutz
macrumors 603
Like what? It certainly isn't random read/writes because even 2nd tier SSD absolutely demolish HDD.
It isn't latency because the avg SSD is what 10x faster.
I think sequential writes is about the only thing that a fast HDD can hope to win.
I think Hellhammer's advice was good. Velociraptors are as good as finished. They suck up too much power, don't perform as well as SSD and they're limited to 300GB so they don't hold all that much more data.
SSDs are WAY out of the range of money I want to spend on a hard drive. Velociraptors are under many circumstances twice as fast as most hds. But they don't cost much more.
nuckinfutz
macrumors 603
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3531&p=3
Raptor latency - 6.83 miliseconds
Intel - .11 miliseconds
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3531&p=25
Raptor - a whopping 1.63MBps Random write <sarcasm>
Intel - 23.1MBps.
At this point it really matters very little whether you go with a 7200rpm HDD or a 10k HDD. Neither is going to offer "game changing" performance like a good SSD will.
Raptor latency - 6.83 miliseconds
Intel - .11 miliseconds
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3531&p=25
Raptor - a whopping 1.63MBps Random write <sarcasm>
Intel - 23.1MBps.
At this point it really matters very little whether you go with a 7200rpm HDD or a 10k HDD. Neither is going to offer "game changing" performance like a good SSD will.
Hellhammer
Moderator emeritus
He's talking about his iMac..so I guess he needs more than 64Gb.
And there I think he's right, price/bennefit ratio might be the best with a Velociraptor.
Though I think for most tasks his stock drive should be enough anyways.
to the OP: I would stick with the current drive if it has served you well up to now. If you could to everything, why change anything?
Hellhammer
Moderator emeritus
Raptors are great in full size towers but iMacs are already running quite hot (HD is over 55c with normal cooling). Raptor would smelt iMac. Also, SSDs are not for storing data yet. I meant that OP could get a 64Gb SSD and use it as boot and app drive and then store his files to external.