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WD VelociRaptor or Caviar Black

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raventy

Member
Joined
Jul 26, 2002
Location
NJ
The WD VelociRaptors are pretty up there in price compared to something like the Caviar Black WD6401AALS. Originally I was going to just pop a 300gb VR in but am thinking maybe I shouldnt waste the money and just go with a 640GB AALS? what do you guys think? is there a big difference between the two?
 
Gonna agree with Rattle. Granted they weren't velo's, but I've had raptors in raid 0 for years. I finally made the change to a Caviar Black several months ago just because I was tired of not having enough space on my OS drive. The Caviar Black is an awesome performer at a fraction of the cost. If you go check benchmarks, the Caviar Black actually outperformed the velociraptors in some tests if I remember correctly.

2x 300GB Velociraptors = 600GB @ $460.
1x 640GB Caviar Black = 640GB @ $70.

Save that $400 for some more goodies :)
 
The WD VelociRaptors are pretty up there in price compared to something like the Caviar Black WD6401AALS. Originally I was going to just pop a 300gb VR in but am thinking maybe I shouldnt waste the money and just go with a 640GB AALS? what do you guys think? is there a big difference between the two?

Raventy,

I bought a Velo 150 for this new build just to try one out. They are fast, small, and quiet. I haven't had any problems with it but the cost difference can be put to better use as suggested above (in my opinion.)
 
I am very pleased with my vraptor. Its quieter than any other drive I have ever used.
 
The WD VelociRaptors are pretty up there in price compared to something like the Caviar Black WD6401AALS. Originally I was going to just pop a 300gb VR in but am thinking maybe I shouldnt waste the money and just go with a 640GB AALS? what do you guys think? is there a big difference between the two?

I have both, I like my raptors for my main drives, and the black is my storage drive.
 
I would agree with everyone that the cost vs. performance with the Raptors just isn't worth it. All you are really paying for is the access times, since you can achieve high read/write speeds with almost any drive in a Raid 0. If you really want low access times, I think SSDs provide significantly better performance for the price based upon all the reviews I have read. Otherwise, go Caviar.
 
thanks guys! i think i'll go with the black and save on the cash $$!
 
Not to derail the thread but is there any significant different between the black 640 and the 1tb for performance wise?
 
Not to derail the thread but is there any significant different between the black 640 and the 1tb for performance wise?

Yes. It's worth it to get the bigger drive perfrmance wise. It's faster by a good bit.
 
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Really? I've never actually seen a review of the 640GB. I'd imagine they're pretty close, the main difference being the extra platter in the 1TB which might help a *little* but shouldn't make a big difference.
 
Really? I've never actually seen a review of the 640GB. I'd imagine they're pretty close, the main difference being the extra platter in the 1TB which might help a *little* but shouldn't make a big difference.

It's a very notice-able difference.
 
It's a very notice-able difference.
How so? You think throwing another platter on the same drive makes a noticeable improvement? :-/ I would expect no performance difference if size is the only difference, just like any other line of drives.

To the OP, buy one of these, you can wait for a new packaged one to show up if desired for the same price, and get a black for storage.
 
FYI Tusken - I get sub-9ms access times on a 200GB partition of a WD6400AAKS blue. It's not VRaptor access time but it's getting close....the Raptor's days of relevance are fading away imo and will be totally gone within a year or so with SSDs advancing.
 
you wont tell a diff between a 640black 1tb black or a VR, the noticable diff claimed between the black 640 and 1tb drive is so close you'd never notice it unless you benched it.

do those $99 VR's have any warranty?
 
you wont tell a diff between a 640black 1tb black or a VR, the noticable diff claimed between the black 640 and 1tb drive is so close you'd never notice it unless you benched it.

do those $99 VR's have any warranty?

I've seen some benchies of 4 x 1TB WD Black and the random access time is like 6-6.5ms which matches the VR but I mean, is it really that fast?? :clap:
 
VR's are great! But the price diff. probably isn't worth it for most.
tabulate_poll.cgi
 
If I were to spend on the VR, I might as well get smaller capacity SSD's since all I need is a fast OS drive :) The rest of the stuffs can be left on the other disk.
 
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