Why the name "Raptor"? It isn't huge. It's fast! Why not a Cheetah? Oh, I think we just infringed on Seagate's trademark. :) Crap... Well, enough with the Sienfeld-like observations.

I would NOT have picked these up if they weren't at least highly discounted, and during Fry's Electronics grand opening, they were $99 each, and had $30 mail-in-rebates. This brings each one down to $69.99 each! I couldn't resist the temptation to buy 2 and RAID 0 them as most people are already doing. But after reading articles on why RAID 0 may not be worth it (performance wise), I had to wonder myself if it would make a huge difference in my computing experience.

Sure, the benchmarks are rock soild, but according to the new findings, regular desktop users like you and me will not benefit. Why? Because we only access small files (even when loading applications and most games). The cache helps minimize disk access by having most of the data already being available in a solid state memory. Only certain games (that loads huge maps in one consistant stream - one large file) will benefit. Or if you do video editing and/or Photoshopping.

Either way, a choice is a choice, and let's get on with the review.

Packaging
First and foremost, you will notice that the packaging is different from the other Caviar drives. Instead of the usual orange, it is green, and there will be a picture of a Raptor. I mean the dinosaur. :)

Otherwise, the shape of the now plastic box is the same. The drive is packaged within two plastic holders that keep the drive centered in the plastic box. A quick guide is included, as well as 4 screws, a couple of extra jumpers, and a patented "Secure SATA" cable.

Installation
The cable it came with is standard SATA cable except it is wider to also connect the SATA power connector as well as the SATA data connector. It also have plastic clips on the side to secure the connector onto the drive itself. It's a bit more difficult to remove, however, as removing it has a tendency to pull towards one side or the other, a chance to break off parts (think PATA cables). The single thin blue cable that comes out of this Western Digital patented-designed "Secure SATA" connector is the traditional SATA size and shape. The end of that cable is a traditional SATA connector for the motherboard.

Securing the drive onto your chassis is different for different computer cases. In my case (pun not intended), the Chieftec full tower ATX case is where I will be installing it. The hard drive cage slips out, and gives easy access to all potential hard drives. Just use the included screws to secure it on both sides (two screws on each side), and you are done. I slid the cage back into the chassis, and cabled it up.

The Raptor drives can use either the new SATA power supply connector, or a traditional molex connector. Of course, if you use the bundled Secure SATA, you have no choice but to use the standard molex, as this connecor uses the SATA power connector for more leverage, and a better secure overall phyiscal connection.

Since my power supply already have SATA compliant power connectors, I have no need for Western Digital's strange concoction of a cable. I used standard SATA cables that came with my motherboard.

Performance
Most will have RAIDed these two by now, but not me. I like torturing my potential victims before they are put to good use. In fact, it is the only chance for me to use HD Tach's write tests too, since there were no partitions or flie system on the drives.

My platform for testing:

Chieftec Full ATX Tower case
Antec TruePower 430W Power Supply
Gigabyte GA-8KNXP i875 Pentium 4 motherboard FSB OCed from 200 to 215 GHz
Intel Pentium 4 3.0c CPU (215 x 15 = 3.24 GHz)
2x 512 MB OCZ DDR433 High Performance DDR Memeory (Dual Channel Kit)
2x Western Digital Raptor 36 GB SATA (duh)
Western Digital Caviar 250 GB 8MB cache (Special Edition) WD2500JBRTL
Western Digital Caviar 80 GB 2MB WD800BB
Plextor PX-708A 8x DVD+/-RW drive
Lite-On LTR-5224A 52x24x52 CD-RW drive

The Gigabyte GA-8KNXP i875 Pentium 4 motherboard have a total of 4 SATAs - 2 controlled by Intel's own southbridge, and 2 controlled by Sillicon Image's 3112A controller.

I hooked up the drive to each controller, and was pleasantly surprised at the results.

HD Tach 3.0 results
WD 36 GB Raptor (Intel)
WD 36 GB Raptor (Sil Img 3112A)

Read MAX
66.1 MB/sec, 66.1 MB/sec

Read MIN
37.7 MB/sec, 37.3 MB/sec

Read AVG
56.5 MB/sec, 55.2 MB/sec

Write MAX
51.6 MB/sec, 54.2 MB/sec

Write MIN
24.0 MB/sec, 14.5 MB/sec

Write AVG
34.4 MB/sec, 34.4 MB/sec

Random Access
7.7 ms, 8.0 ms

Burst Rate
120.5 MB/sec, 120.2 MB/sec

CPU Utilization
0.6%, 0.7%

As you can see, the differences are very minor between the two. Shocking, considering that one of the reasons why Intel integrated SATA into the southbridge was to elimiate the bottleneck from PCI bus. However, as you can see, it's too close to call. Perhaps the reason is because Western Digital's SATA solution still requires a PATA-SATA conversion? I guess this is what the "comment" section in ePinions is for. :) If anyone finds out why this is, please comment.

Now, this is already a pretty fast drive on its own. My fastest drive besides the Raptors, was the 250 GB Western Digital SE drive. Which posted 60.2 MB/sec max read, which is not too far away from the Raptor's 66 MB/sec lead. However, the SE's access time was 14.6 ms, compared to the Raptor's low 8s. Also, for some reason (doesn't matter what controller I used), the SE's burst rate was only around 80 MB/sec (this test revealed that on the Gigabyte's native controller, I got 72.6 MB/sec). This is a far cry from even my other drives (the 80 GB non-SE drive posted nearly 95 MB/sec).

Now the amazing thing about this drive isn't the read speeds, but the writes! Most drives can't even write at the same speed as their read speeds. But as you can see, the Raptors posted up a max read of 50 MB/sec! This is good news for content creators and video editors.

Now, lets check out the RAID 0 striping performances to see how much more we can wring out of these drives. I used Intel's solution only in this test. Sorry, Silicon Image people... time constraints.

2x WD 36 GB Raptor RAID 0 (Intel)
128 kb clusters

Read MAX
77.0 MB/sec

Read MIN
30.7 MB/sec

Read AVG
63.2 MB/sec

Write MAX
75.3 MB/sec

Write MIN
32.2 MB/sec

Write AVG
42.2 MB/sec

Random Access
9.2 ms

Burst Rate
215.3 MB/sec

CPU Utilization
1.6%

The burst rate is amazing! Imagine accessing smaller files when everything is cached. :) Not likely going to happen consistantly, but we can dream. The maximum read speed isn't as fast as most benchmarks found in epinions. I only got a max of 77 MB/sec, where some reported 120 MB/sec. The real reason behind a RAID 0 configuration would be for content creators and video editors, as the write speeds are just plain fast. It's erratic accross the board, however. As stated before, I was using 128 kb clusters, and will find out if 64 kb would help smooth it out.

So far, so good. I decided to do informal tests and imaged my current WD 80 GB boot drive onto the RAIDed pair of Raptors. Boot times were not noticably quicker, nor was using the PC. Programs came up as usual.

I guess the reports are right about the real life benefits of a RAID 0 is nearly non-existant for most desktop users.

During game loads, it was noticably quicker, but probably not worth spending this much for. Far Cry's progress bar was much quicker than I remembered it, as well as Midnight Club II.


The Last Straw
All in all, it may not be worth it for most, but it may be for some. Would also be great for braggers.

The noise isn't that much more than a WD hard drive spinning at 7200 RPMs, but the heat is insane! You'll definately would want some kind of cooling method (such as fans in front, like how my Chieftec case allows).

As far as recomendation, there is no clear cut way to say it. Yes, it's fast, but is it worth it? It's not very noticable for everyday desktop users, but if you play some of the newer games that require level loading that are huge files (not just little ones), then it would load much faster. Again, is it worth the price to load faster?

Although my eyes are starry, my pocket book is cranky. I'll leave the judgement of "is it worth it" to you.

Recommended: No