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Worth tossing in a velociraptor?

zepharus

zepharus

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Aug 7, 2007
684
2
I have an early 2009 quad. I upgraded the memory to 6GB from OWC and it has the stock 640GB WD driive. I also have a 200 GB WD drive im using in there for Time machine backups.

My question is, is it worth it to throw in a Velociraptor 300GBHFLS that i have left over from my gaming rig? will I see that much of a difference is OS usage?

thoughts...
 
zepharus said:
I have an early 2009 quad. I upgraded the memory to 6GB from OWC and it has the stock 640GB WD driive. I also have a 200 GB WD drive im using in there for Time machine backups.

My question is, is it worth it to throw in a Velociraptor 300GBHFLS that i have left over from my gaming rig? will I see that much of a difference is OS usage?

thoughts...
Click to expand...

Nah, not worth it. A velociraptor offers barely any improvement over your stock 640GB drive. I'm speaking relatively... dropping a good SSD in there will make the Velociraptor feel like a turd.
 
You do not seem to have a lot of HD space anyway. So why not do the raptor just to make OS x a tad mor snappy. It would also be a good Bootcamp bootdrive if you want gaming on your Mac.

Generally speaking the velociraptors will go the way all the dinosaurs have gone. SSD rulez! :D
 
zepharus said:
I have an early 2009 quad. I upgraded the memory to 6GB from OWC and it has the stock 640GB WD driive. I also have a 200 GB WD drive im using in there for Time machine backups.

My question is, is it worth it to throw in a Velociraptor 300GBHFLS that i have left over from my gaming rig? will I see that much of a difference is OS usage?

thoughts...
Click to expand...

Since you have it try it and find out. I use a Velociraptor in my hackintosh and it is much faster than 7200rpm drives especially as a OS drive as the seek time makes a lot of difference.

Of course a SSD would be much faster but price/gb is also a lot higher. Really depends on how much you want to spend...
 
As you already have the drive on hand, give it a shot. ;)

You can always set it up as a short stroke (small partition that uses only the outer tracks, which give the highest throughputs). How effective this is will depend on how big the partition is though. Usually you set the partition up as 10% of the total rated capacity, but on the VR, that's only 30GB. So you'd have to experiment with that one, if you wish. :)
 
As you've already got the drive why not just whack it in.

I doubt compared to the drive you already have you're going to see massive difference.

I went from one of the older 250gb crappy segate drives to the 150gb version of what you have and I did notice a reasonable performance increase. But I do plan on going with SSD eventually.

But as I said, you have it already so it's not going to cost you anything to try it is it?
 
If you have it why not use it?

I don't like the Raptors for the same reason I don't like SSD's, the capacity is too small for my needs. If I could hide a small SSD in my Mac Pro as just the boot drive (like the 09 Xserves) then I might be interested. But giving up a drive bay that I can shove 1TB+ of storage in just isn't worth it imo. But since you have it and you have empty drive bays might as well throw it in there couldn't hurt anything.

I know there is a 1TB SSD now but $2500 USD. :eek:

EDIT: Just checked the story again and the price is down to $2200 USD.
http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/oczs-1tb-colossus-ssd-gets-a-price-and-launch-timeframe/
 
Cynicalone said:
If you have it why not use it?

I don't like the Raptors for the same reason I don't like SSD's, the capacity is too small for my needs. If I could hide a small SSD in my Mac Pro as just the boot drive (like the 09 Xserves) then I might be interested. But giving up a drive bay that I can shove 1TB+ of storage in just isn't worth it imo. But since you have it and you have empty drive bays might as well throw it in there couldn't hurt anything.

I know there is a 1TB SSD now but $2500 USD. :eek:

EDIT: Just checked the story again and the price is down to $2200 USD.
http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/03/oczs-1tb-colossus-ssd-gets-a-price-and-launch-timeframe/
Click to expand...
You could find a spot I think. Even placed beneath one of the HDD's via velcro, zip ties, whatever needed to hold it there. ;)

It's nice to see the MSRP come down on the OCZ Colossus, but that's still out of reach for many I'd think. :p
 
Stay away from the VR. It's loud and annoying. I'm putting an SSD in there asap.
 
ventro said:
Stay away from the VR. It's loud and annoying. I'm putting an SSD in there asap.
Click to expand...

Huh? I can't even hear mine.

It will be faster, but as noted SSD much faster still.

I use a velociraptor for my boot, it will become my swap when I go SSD.
 
patpro said:
If you enjoy updating SSD firmware every 2 weeks, that's the way to go :)

I still think consumer SSD is not mature. It's fancy, it's cool, it's hype, but not mature.
Click to expand...

It's pretty easy and the data isn't wiped..

The updates make them faster better stronger!
 
SDDs are still too new and too expensive for the average user. I'm fine with my Veliciraptor for boot right now. When the time comes that I can raid 2 160gb SSDs together for under $400, I'll jump on the train.
 
At this point it's all a question of $/GB and how much one's willing to pay for speed. If you were going to buy right now, unless the VR or X-25M occupy sweet spots for you in terms of price/performance, hold off. Better stuff and price drops are forthcoming. That said, the VR will be the fastest mechanical drive you can use and its price isn't BAD. it's just not amazing. It does offer more capacity than equivalent SSDs, so it has its benefits. Mine made my machine snappier, and it's worth pumping money into your boot drive if you haven't yet.
 
nanofrog said:
You could find a spot I think. Even placed beneath one of the HDD's via velcro, zip ties, whatever needed to hold it there. ;)

It's nice to see the MSRP come down on the OCZ Colossus, but that's still out of reach for many I'd think. :p
Click to expand...

I had thought about the SAS drives but have no experience with them. I'm waiting on SSD to come down in price and go up in capacity. I use an SSD in my laptop and love it but giving up 3/4 of a TB just to get a slight speed increase is still not worth it imo.
 
Cynicalone said:
I had thought about the SAS drives but have no experience with them. I'm waiting on SSD to come down in price and go up in capacity. I use an SSD in my laptop and love it but giving up 3/4 of a TB just to get a slight speed increase is still not worth it imo.
Click to expand...
If you're after a single fast drive, SSD's a better bet. It's worse than SAS for $/GB, but it is faster. Otherwise, save the extra money and get a large SATA drive. Enterprise model if you were after the improved reliability of SAS.

Just my opinion though. ;) :D
 
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