Hey Guys,
 
Need to replace my old 74 gigs raptors in raid 0. Its been about almost 5 years and now they don't have the capacity anymore plus I think they are starting to go out.  Here's what I'm looking for at least 500 gigs or larger would like them to have 7200rpm w/ 32m cache and SATA.  Is there going to be a performance difference old in raid 0 vs the new single drive?   With these raptors I was always the first ones to get into maps and my comp loaded up fast.  Should I get 2 500 and  raid 0.  I do have a back drive  for my important files and nver had a problem with raid 0.  Oh I use them to store lots of pictures and video from my HD video camera.
 
Thanks for your help
Ghostmann

The new drive will not be as fast as the old Raptors if you go with a 7200rpm model. For speed, I'd get a pair of Velociraptors (300GB) instead of a 7200. Otherwise, the Western Digital WD640AAKS is a nice fast 640GB model, or the Caviar Black 1TB model for a bit more space. RAID will help your sequentials, but not random access which is usually the limiting factor on hard drive speed anyways.

My vote would be for the WD 640GB drives, they are super quick and at a great price.

A single WD6400AAKS will be a bit slower than two old Raptors in RAID 0, when you are accessing a lot of small files or if the files on your drive are very fragmented. That's simply because it's running at 7200 rpm and not 10000rpm so it takes longer to find the first sector of each file.
 
When dealing with large files, like videos, the single WD6400AAKS will actually beat the RAID0 because it has an enormous data density. That is, once the first sector is found, the others are accessed faster on the single new drive. IIRC the average read rates are like 97 MB/s for the single WD6400AAKS and 90 for the two Raptors in RAID 0.

Hey guys thanks for a quick response.  One more question though what if I get 2 WD 640 and put them in raid 0 is it going to be close to what I have now?  Even though the raptors are 10rpm  w/8m cache vs 7200rpm 32m cache.  I really dont want to spend 600 on 2 raptors.

It should still be slower for small files, but more than twice as fast for videos.

It won't be quite as fast (for game loading that is - it would FLY for videos and large file copies), but it should be more than fast enough, unless you are really impatient.

Have a look at this review of the 640 AAKS. It's a damned good drive and can be had at prices of less than 90.00 in Canada and probably similar in the U.S.
http://techreport.com/articles.x/14380

Since your not really worried about a raid system anymore, it's always best to split your maximum capacity into 2. This does two things. Your games/progs will run faster on c: due to less addresses and your d: drive will get less wear and tear. If you worried about backing up your important data it's best to burn your pics and vids to dvd asap.
 
I hope your not just using raid to keep your family photos and vids on the HD's?
 
Backup, backup, backup 2 dvd!
 
 

If you can find a single platter HD with 32MB cache, get 2 and raid 0 them.
The Seagate 7200.11 32MB cache series have good speed in raid 0, beating out 2 raptors in raid 0 in all but 1 benchmark. The review is here on toms.
While the new WD 2.5 inch raptors are a bit faster, they would have been better served if the cache had been increased. For the price no raptor is worth it.
The newer Seagate series 7200.11 320GB 16MB cache drive is a very good choice for speed, with it's single platter.  

It always amazes me how different reviewers seem to have such varied opinions. Just to be fair Toms has the 7200.11 drives in their hard drive charts and they do perform well. Unfortunately they do not seem to list the WD6400AAKS in those same charts. Unusual, since this drive although not making the front page, has some very very good reviews in spite of it's 16 MB of cache. Before you run out and buy the latest Seagate have a look at this review of the drive.
 
http://techreport.com/articles.x/13440
 
Then after you're done reading that, have a look at these reviews of the Western Digital WD6400AAKS.
 
http://techreport.com/articles.x/14380
 
 
http://www.extremetech.com/article [...] 242,00.asp
 
 
What I really like about these WD drives is the price. NCIX Canada just had them on sale for 83.00 or 84.00. Current non sale price is 99.00 Cdn.
Gotta love that :-)
 
The Canuck

If speed is of great importance: Go for the black editions from Western Digital. They are pretty fast! And since they are at 7200rpm they will probably last longer than 10000rpms drives because of the heat.
 
I would also suggest that you place coolers on the harddrive to expand it's lifetime. To only be able to use a harddisk for 5 years sounds to me more than unacceptable.
 
I myself was very interested in the new VelociRaptors when they came out and even if I had economy to buy one I don't think I would have. I myself want to have a harddrive that lasts for many years.