i just got a new 36gb WD raptor 10,000rpm SATA and after installing windows on it the drive seems really slow. heres an example my maxtor 30gb HDD usually takes 2 bars of the XP screen. but the raptor takes 10 1/2 bars. is this normal? as it seems slow. the rest of my specs are in my sig
thats not in any way a reflection of how fast the harddrive is. I believe that your problem is with drivers of some sort. If i run a completely fresh install of windows, it boots in 2-3 bars. after i install my chipset drivers and graphics card drivers, it takes about 10. I think its the ati drivers, but im too lazy to test this out .
You can't judge hdd speed by how many bars of the xp screen it takes to load. What about in windows itself, how quickly do programs load? how quickly do programs install? how do benchmarks perform? have you defragged? etc.
i would have to agree, with whats being said here. i am currently running a raptor drive and let me tell you they are damn fast. My windows, after all the raid detection crap takes about 10 seconds to boot to the login screent hen about 10 more sevconds to login. When copying files from my raptor to one of my ide drives it runs at anywhere from 30 MB/S to 45MB/s. so they are damn fast. also i would install the absolute latest chipset drivers for your MOBO as those will help as well.
Sisoft Sandra has a hard drive benchmark utility. Use that to see how your drive is performing compared to the many hard drives in its database.
raptor drives are the fastest no scsi, and non solidstate storage devices on the current market, there are no other 10 000 RPM SATA drives to my knowledge and the only to gp faster is a very expensive Ultra Wide 360 SCSI setup. Trust me the raptors are killer. i can boot and be logged into windows in under 25 seconds.
well my 30gb 2mb maxtor could do that no hassles. with the raptor even after a format and no drivers installed it takes more han a minute. im gonna test it on my other sata controller
are you sure you dont have some kind of uber-maxtor? you know, one with magical ninja skills... ive never had that problem.... mines run veryfast after all driver installs.
actually, when I was testing mine out, they're really no faster than an 80gb sata drive, except slightly better seek times. The 74gb models are quite a bit faster though. I think it has something to do with the data being more spaced out and it takes more movement to get from bit to bit, but that's an utter guess. That said, it could be the controller or crap loading in the background. After a fresh install mine only took one bar or so, after I got my crap reloaded it took quite a bit longer. The character LCD especially added quite a bit of time.
It could just be a weird driver or something, which is probably the most common issue. That said, Raptors have a horrid reputation for needed defragged about every 5 minutes. All those 1's and 0's being spun around at 10,000 RPM's, ya never know where a few are gonna land up. I would defrag it and see if that helps.
Hi All, Errmm there is a lot a "speculation" the Raptor is a very fast HD! Seek time wise THE best "Normal" SATA..... I have the 74Gig Version - defragging is no big issue. don't tell me U use Microsoft! The key is the motherboard drivers, connection type being employed and file system etc.. Use HD Tach (Latest version) to verify your harddrive performance. WD Raptor has been listed on storage reviews leaderboard for over 6 months now and has a good reputation for reliability... Matt
Although, iirc, the 74 gig version performs slightly better than the 36 gig version. May not explain it, but might be worth mentioning... Oh, and what kind of RAM do you have? May also be that...
I got my Raptor 36GB yesterday After installing my mobo drivers it only takes 1/2 windows bar and I have the login screen
