Conclusion, Pricing, and Thoughts
Conclusion:
PROS:
- Outstanding sequential read and write speeds
- Best IOPS weve seen out of a spinning disk to date (non-hybrid)
- Industry leading 5-Year Warranty.
CONS:
- HDDs generally struggle to match the thousands of IOPS capable of modern SSDs. As good as it is, the VR just can’t come close to Solid State.
Pricing and Availability:
SSDs just don’t come this big, but here’s the larger capacities for comparison:
OCZ Octane: 512G @ $850 ($1.66 / GB)
Intel 520 Series: 480G @ $800 ($1.67 / GB)
OCZ Vertex 3: 480G @ $770 ($1.60 / GB)
OCZ Vertex 4: 512G @ $700 ($1.37 / GB)
Samsung 830 Series: 512G @ $710 ($1.39 / GB)
And now the start MSRP’s for the new VelociRaptor:
- 250G @ $160 ($0.64 / GB)
- 500G @ $210 ($0.42 / GB)
- 1TB @ $320 ($0.32 / GB)
Clearly it makes sense to go with the highest capacity here, which is not always the case with SSDs. Another cool data point is that the 600GB VR was $0.55 / GB when it was released! Even on the bleeding edge we still see prices coming down.
Warranty:
Standard Western Digital 5-year Warranty – as WD has always applied to their higher end storage.
Firmware:
It’s a Hard Drive, and HDDs have the luxury of not being so sensitive to performance and flash management issues. With that, well, there’s really nothing to discuss here :).
Final Thoughts:
Western Digital has done well to keep the VelociRaptor pedigree alive with this new 1TB model. We saw notable imporvements across the board, as well as some very impressive throughput figures breaking the 200MB/sec mark. While spinning disks have a ways to go before they can compete with solid state, the new VelociRaptor does extremely well and tops all other spinning disks out there, at a cost/GB way cheaper than any SSD!
Just one question, why no
Just one question, why no Hybrid Version?
I would think that would rock.
Simply from what I have seen,
Simply from what I have seen, they haven’t worked out extremely well. They are good, but nothing really above a good drive such as this. The second attemps were improved, but still nothing compared to an ssd.
Any VelociRaptor would be an
Any VelociRaptor would be an excellent base for Intel RST caching actually. The catch is that since all of the cached performance comes from the caching SSD, most people will just go with the cheapest and largest cost/GB (i.e. Caviar Green) for the HDD, since uncached random access would occur much less frequently, and you just get more room that way. Provided you already had the caching capable motherboard, you could almost buy a Caviar Green and a caching SSD for the cost of the largest VelociRaptor.
Hey Allyn,
Thanks for
Hey Allyn,
Thanks for the review, glad to finally see this drive out. I use my pc for gaming, audio and video editing, as well as AutoCAD and other difficult tasks. I don’t want an SSD considering the extremely high price when you get to large sizes (500 GB or higher). I need to replace or upgrade 3 drives that I have currently.
I can either get a WD black 1 TB as an OS drive, or buy one of the new 1 TB VRs. Of course the VR is going to be better, but would it really be worth the additional cost comparatively?
Lastly, I need to upgrade my 1TB/1.5TB backup drives to something of at least 2,3, or better yet 4 TB. The high space requirements leaves me with little to no options unless there is something coming down the pike soon. Would it be worth settling for a 2TB black, grab a lower end higher capacity driver, or simply wait for the WD black/blue 3-4 TB drives?
Money is an issue, so nothing INSANE, but you would be the one to help me out with this.
Thanks!
P.S. the other issue I have with even getting a 200-300 GB SSD is simply the unknown lifespan. I need a drive to last at least 4-5 years.
A sufficiently
A sufficiently over-provisioned drive will outlast most spindle drives.
Did you ever wonder why companies make a 240 GB model and an almost identical 256 GB model? Yet other companies only have one level of over-provisioning for a generation. Intel typically.
My software alone is 300-400
My software alone is 300-400 GB of data. Some of that is games, but most of it isn’t. Lots of library files and such that need to be on the OS/Software drive.
I have never had a drive, traditional spindle last less then 5 years, even had some last 7. I would want an SSD to have several hundred gigabytes more then what I require to extend the life of it. A 500 GB or higher would be what I require, not what I want.
That being said, SSD surveys and so forth have indicated a dramatically shortened life then expected. It is an extremely young technology when you compare it to spindle based drives, and I will keep my money in those until I am certain data will not be lost.
If you are really pounding
If you are really pounding your OS drive with random simultaneous access (Autocad and Video scrubbing absolutely qualify), you should really consider a smallish SSD. For that sort of access you could effectively replace even three RAIDed Raptors and see better performance for those types of workloads. You just have to evaluate what stuff really *has* to be on the C drive, and start using another HDD for the other frequently access items. The VR can be very good for that task actually.
For backups, go big and cheap. I personally use Caviar Greens for backups, and RE4-GPs in a RAID for near-line storage (stuff that I frequently access but is not on the SSD).
For reliability, if it’s a good controller and a solid product (Intel / Samsung), it will have no problem making it to at least it’s warranty date. My original X25-M is still alive and kicking after dozens of TBs of bulk writes that I hit it with while researching the original Long Term Performance piece and all follow up articles and benchmarks. That drive is in constant use even to this day without so much as a hiccup.
Also consider that since SSDs have such insanely high IOPS on random reads, you can backup the SSD to your near-line HDD nightly if you wanted to. Backups are lightning fast and are usually limited by the sequential write speed of the HDD as opposed to the random read speed of the SSD. It’s actually the perfect marriage of the two technologies, and you would always have a backup to cover you in the rare case that your SSD did fail.
Thanks for the reply, really
Thanks for the reply, really exactly what I needed. I will look into all of those, and I have for certain been considering a 250 GB SSD as a scratch drive or something to record FRAPS gameplay to. An hour of gameplay amounts to just above 200 GB.
Specifically, which samsung line is it that you suggest. I know you have the 830’s which blew you away in terms of performance. I will try looking around and keeping an eye on sales for both brands.
As far as the rest goes, I think I will find a 1 TB on sale, use that for OS, and work on finding some 3 or 4 TB drives as a backup/data drive. And finally add that SSD for usage on certain things.
Thanks again man.
Once you grab that SSD, first
Once you grab that SSD, first try and OS/App install to it for a test drive. I bet you’ll end up keeping it that way and sending your FRAPS stream to a VelociRaptor :). Definitely go 830 if you go Samsung. B&H recently had the 256GB for $280 shipped, but no longer. Keep an eye out for sales is your best bet there.
What’s up, just wanted to
What’s up, just wanted to tell you, I loved this article. It was inspiring. Keep on posting!
Also visit my homepage finished basement flooring photos
SSDs are good but, price and
SSDs are good but, price and no space.
spindles aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. MORE RPMS!!!!
Al thanks for this nice
Al thanks for this nice review i know what my future os drive is going to be since i do not wish to take the ssd plunge till prices come down and capacities come up.
AL i would really like to see this drive paired with a Corsair Accelerator Series 60GB SATA II Internal Solid State Drive and see what numbers it puts up. Seeing how this may be the only way for people on an AMD platform to experience SSD Caching.
I’m working on a Corsair
I’m working on a Corsair Accelerator piece at the moment, but for reference and consistency with prior pieces the results will be with a Caviar Green 2TB. Pairing the Accelerator with the VelociRaptor would only speed up uncached performance, so for cached stuff the caching SSD carries the benchmark results while the HDD sits mostly idle. Unfortunately there is no benchmark method for hybrid setups that can correctly evaluate simultaneous cached + uncached access (but I’m working on one).
Allyn,
Can you tell us
Allyn,
Can you tell us anything about the noise levels of the drive?
http://techreport.com/articles.x/22794/10
Techreport has reported it is quite loud when seeking.
VelociRaptors have always
VelociRaptors have always been loud when being worked hard. I don’t have hard figures to back it up, but the 1TB seemed identical to the 600GB.
Seems like it missed its
Seems like it missed its time, for speed you’re better off buying an SSD and experiencing insane IOPS. For storage, just get whatever cheap drive, maybe even green series for quieter operation.
Pairing the Accelerator with
Pairing the Accelerator with the VelociRaptor would only speed up uncached performance, so for cached stuff the caching SSD carries the benchmark results while the HDD sits mostly idle. Unfortunately there is no benchmark method for hybrid setups that can correctly evaluate simultaneous cached + uncached access (but I’m working on one).
http://goo.gl/y8lJ7
As someone who is using an
As someone who is using an orginal OCZ Summit 60gb, and 2x500gb Hitachi CinimaStars in raid 0.
I can agree with Al, throw your OS and apps on an SSD. And everything else on regular drives. I think youd be surprised at how much space you really DONT need on your main OS/APP drive if your storing all the large files on regular drives.
I test and use a bunch of VM’s and Vmware+ VirtualBox sit on the SSD and all the VMs + Steam games sit on the Raid.
It was night and going from 2x74gb raptors + the 2x500gb Hitachi to the SSD and 2x500gb raid. And this was a long time ago. And SSD’s have gotin even faster since. Time to upgrade the Summit.
It’s truly very complicated
It’s truly very complicated in this active life to listen news
on TV, so I just use world wide web for that purpose, and get
the most up-to-date information.
Here is my page: find cell phone numbers (Jake)
Aw, this was a very good
Aw, this was a very good post. Finding the time and actual effort to produce a great
article… but what can I say… I put things off a lot and don’t seem to get nearly anything
done.
Also visit my site :: switchboard reverse phone lookup (http://ecelllocator.com/)
$269 online!!?!? …even i
$269 online!!?!? …even i can see SSD makes more sense 🙂
I have a Samsung 840 Pro
I have a Samsung 840 Pro 128gb. While I like the drive as far as speed and doesn’t help with storage. Because of this I chose a 3ware 9750-4i with 4 500gb velociraptors and I love those even more in Raid 0. Now as we all know that All spindle hard drives are fast at the beginning of an HD Tune test and slow at the end of the drive. So when I throw my number it will be at the lowest speed of the drive which I scored a 490MB/s a sec. This is impressive considering it’s at the slowest point of the HD Tune test and access times are very livable at 6.6ms. Raptors are designed for 100 percent duty cycle over the course of 5 years while the Samsung Pro is designed for 75 percent duty cycle over the course of 3 years. Yes, I’m aware that the pro’s have a 5 year warranty but most consumers won’t reach more than 25-40 duty cycle and this is what Samsung is counting on. I, myself rely on my computer heavily and I want very advantage of longevity I can get so for space, longevity and reasonably close performance to SSD the raptors win over SSD drives for now.