Western Digital WD1500ADFD: King Raptor
by Gary Key on February 8, 2006 1:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
Final Words
The performance of the third-generation Raptor is truly impressive from several different angles. While, at this time, we did not test the unit against the SCSI competitors with which it is meant to compete, we did find the drive to offer the overall highest performance in the SATA market. Like its predecessor, this is the drive to have if single-user performance matters over absolute storage capability. In fact, having this drive as the primary OS and game unit with a larger capacity drive for general storage would be an ideal combination.
In our thermal and acoustic testing, the drive offered average scores, but considering the performance and design of the drive, we could live with these minor annoyances in our main system. However, if you plan on building a silent system or using this drive in a SFF case, please understand that the thermals and acoustics will be noticeable.
We did witness performance decreases of up to 9% in certain benchmarks with NCQ activated. We will further investigate the performance penalty of NCQ in the near future with our revised benchmark suite. At this time we recommend turning off NCQ if this drive will be utilized in a single-user environment.
With a $300 price tag, 150GB capacity, and enterprise market heritage, this drive is targeted to a different market. While Western Digital desperately wants the drive to succeed in the server arena, they are acutely aware of the fact that the computer enthusiast will likely be one of the main purchasers of this drive. The Raptor X looks like the drive to have for the serious case modder, but we feel the additional $50 in cost is better applied toward buying a large storage drive for your system.
What is our recommendation? If storage space is not of prime concern and your budget allows it, then buy this drive. It offers the best single-user performance of any drives that we have tested to date along with the safety of owning a drive designed for 24/7 operation.
It took a few years, but Western Digital brought true excellence to a now mature product.
The performance of the third-generation Raptor is truly impressive from several different angles. While, at this time, we did not test the unit against the SCSI competitors with which it is meant to compete, we did find the drive to offer the overall highest performance in the SATA market. Like its predecessor, this is the drive to have if single-user performance matters over absolute storage capability. In fact, having this drive as the primary OS and game unit with a larger capacity drive for general storage would be an ideal combination.
In our thermal and acoustic testing, the drive offered average scores, but considering the performance and design of the drive, we could live with these minor annoyances in our main system. However, if you plan on building a silent system or using this drive in a SFF case, please understand that the thermals and acoustics will be noticeable.
We did witness performance decreases of up to 9% in certain benchmarks with NCQ activated. We will further investigate the performance penalty of NCQ in the near future with our revised benchmark suite. At this time we recommend turning off NCQ if this drive will be utilized in a single-user environment.
With a $300 price tag, 150GB capacity, and enterprise market heritage, this drive is targeted to a different market. While Western Digital desperately wants the drive to succeed in the server arena, they are acutely aware of the fact that the computer enthusiast will likely be one of the main purchasers of this drive. The Raptor X looks like the drive to have for the serious case modder, but we feel the additional $50 in cost is better applied toward buying a large storage drive for your system.
What is our recommendation? If storage space is not of prime concern and your budget allows it, then buy this drive. It offers the best single-user performance of any drives that we have tested to date along with the safety of owning a drive designed for 24/7 operation.
It took a few years, but Western Digital brought true excellence to a now mature product.
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Gary Key - Monday, February 20, 2006 - link
Maybe we should do a RAID 5 test only.....the RAID 0 results are what you expect them to be at this time, very good in two system benchmarks but slower in a couple of games..... ;->
mlittl3 - Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - link
Here you go.http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=rap...">http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=rap...
http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/02/06/wd1500ad_ra...">http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/02/06/wd1500ad_ra...
Two articles with raid numbers.
Wesley Fink - Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - link
The THG review only compares a single 150 Raptor to a RAID 0 with slower drives, but it does use a few real-world benchmarks. The other review tests RAID 0 with these Raptors but only uses synthetic benchmarks. Synthetic benchmarks are useful, but they are only part of the performance picture. Results with real-world benchmarks - particularly in RAID 0 - are very different.Live - Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - link
The tests linked are not very good. GamePC uses synthetic benchmarks which are not indicative of real world desktop performance. The Iometer in particular is not useful for single user scenarios and never was. Basically Gamepc doesn’t know what they are doing (or since they sell the stuff maybe that’s just what they do...)We all RAID-O improves performance a lot in Synthetic benchmarks. It does however not do the same for real world tests and certainly not in a cost effective way. I highly doubt SATA or this new raptor changes that. But would be interesting nonetheless to see some tests on the matter.
rjm55 - Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - link
This is the best hard drive review I've seen on AT in a very long time. Great job, guys. The history of Raptors at the start was a nice touch to help me better understand what WD is doing. I also think this is the first drive review I have seen by Gary Key. Bring us some more like this one.Live - Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - link
I have to agree this was really a step up as far as hardrive reviews go. Nice to see you are improving your thermal and acoustics testing. Keep up the good work!!!Rolphus - Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - link
Agreed - great review, and it was really interesting and useful to get an understanding of the evolution of the product.My only question is, why wasn't Raptor+NCQ added as part of the multi-tasking tested? I can see that being a useful indicator of desktop performance, especially as dual-core CPUs become more prevalent.
Rolphus - Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - link
That would be multi-tasking tests. Only had one coffee so far.Gary Key - Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - link
We will be investigating the effects of NCQ in more detail in the near future. We are working on a revised benchmark suite that consists of more real world applications and varying multi-task scenarios.ohnnyj - Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - link
In some of the graphs there are two 74GB Raptors, are these two different revisions?John