$30 10,000rpm VelocoRapters Worth It?

**MegalosSkylaki** · July 7th, 2012, 01:11 AM

I've seen these HDDs at Computer Geeks for $30. Although marked 'Refurbished' , unless they are sold as B or C grade , they are usually discontinued New products.

Newegg.com - Refurbished: Western Digital VelociRaptor WD800HLFS 80GB 10000 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

While 80 Gbs is low, in an era of cheap external hard drives plus one and two terabyte internal storage HDDs, I don't see this as a problem.

I have an unused computer with four HDD bays and 0,1, and 0+1 RAID I could dress with four of these for 160Gb of Active storage.

What do you think?

MegalosSkylaki

PS Alternatively, using just one as the main drive on any computer for 10,000rpm speed. At $30 they can replaced at the first sign of failure.

**ShyguyXPC** · July 7th, 2012, 01:25 AM

Take a peek at my sig

Mine seems to run fine, bought Refurbed on Newegg for more than that $30, but was less than $60 if I remember.

I ran some drive tools and seems to check out fine.

The Velociraptors don't run that hot from what I have seen, not sure if its the Heatsink or what, but mine runs fairly cool, compared to my 74GB original Raptor I had years ago.

Currently sitting at "idle" at about 27C right now, not sure how hot its gotten, but can't be that bad. My 750GB WD Black series runs at 35C idle right now, so the heatsink must be doing its job or something. (of course the Window AC is blowing into the case as well, and my GPU is idling at 25C also LOL)

it also runs pretty quiet compared to some of my other drives in past as well.

wasn't long ago, Newegg has some 300GB Models for around $75 or so.

150GB: Newegg.com - Refurbished: Western Digital VelociRaptor WD1500GLFS 150GB 10000 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

Newegg.com - Refurbished: Western Digital VelociRaptor WD1500HLFS 150GB 10000 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

but either case, price wise, it beats using SSD's for performance, and capacity.

add in the RAID 1 function and you have redundancy you can't get from a single SSD either.

**ShyguyXPC** · July 7th, 2012, 01:26 AM

I see the drives your talking about: Western Digital VelociRaptor WD800HLFS 80GB SATA/300 Western Digital WD800HLFS

**MegalosSkylaki** · July 7th, 2012, 01:30 AM

wadda you think?
Worth a bite?

**ShyguyXPC** · July 7th, 2012, 01:31 AM

This is a good deal, cheaper than Neweggs price at the time.

Single 300GB Drive: Western Digital VelociRaptor WD3000BLFS 300GB SATA/300 Western Digital WD3000BLFS-01YBU0 VelociRaptor

It lacks the heatsink and is not designed for laptops, but you could install that into a desktop easily enough.

If your wondering about the HUGE stock of Hitachi and Samsung Refurbs on there lately, its because its most likely Overstock from those companies, since Seagate Bought Samsungs HDD division, and Western Digital Bought Hitachi's HDD division as well.

**ShyguyXPC** · July 7th, 2012, 01:34 AM

Originally Posted by MegalosSkylaki

wadda you think?
Worth a bite?

At $30 a pop? I would.

Hell I'm thinking of maybe nabbing one myself, just to have on hand in case my 74GB model takes a crap.

I'd even consider the 300GB model, but with out the Heatsink, and no idea what I could use to cool it, I'd be a little weary, but the 80GB models would be worth it IMO.

I only wish there was some Seagate Momentus XT refurbs listed, Those are the ones I'm looking for. 4GB SSD Cache, along with regular 5400RPM Drive part all in one drive. More or less functions like Intels Smart Response Technology on their Z68 and newer Chipsets, using SSD storage to cache regular drives for faster performance.

**ShyguyXPC** · July 7th, 2012, 01:51 AM

Just ordered one for myself.

I figure by the time I get myself a new SSD, maybe in a month or so, I can just use this 80GB Drive in my brothers PC for his OS drive, and the 500GB I have for him, for his games then.

**MegalosSkylaki** · July 7th, 2012, 02:03 AM

This 300Gb is cheap at $70 and has an adapter but is sata2...suggestion that it may not be totally "new"

New 300GB VelociRaptor 10000RPM 16MB SATA2 Hard Drive | eBay
The cooling option for the 2.5 is an adaptor and something like this
Hard Drive Cooler w/2 Fans & 4-Pin Connector (Black) - VIO HC-350-BK HC-350
if you don't mind the noise and can 100% secure it.

Err..

why does it come with an 2.5 to 3.5 (?) adaptor and no heatsink?

Is this also a 2.5 noteboke product?

DOOG

**MegalosSkylaki** · July 7th, 2012, 02:12 AM

Originally Posted by ShyguyXPC

Just ordered one for myself.

I figure by the time I get myself a new SSD, maybe in a month or so, I can just use this 80GB Drive in my brothers PC for his OS drive, and the 500GB I have for him, for his games then.

They have about 80...nothing worse (err...almost) than the gring sound of impending hard drive failure--so I always keep spares of just about everything around.

What's worse is when you can't find the spare when you need it!

**ShyguyXPC** · July 7th, 2012, 03:05 AM

those 300GB models your looking at, I don't remember why they don't have a heatsink, but they are also too thick to be installed in a laptop.

from what I read on the Velociraptors, WD dropped them down from 3.5 inch to 2.5 to reduce power consumption, heat and distance to travel for the heads to increase read/write times.

you could probably still use these things with out the heatsink, but makes mounting them in a regular PC that much easier, and run cooler.

but no, the velociraptors were never intended for Laptop use, which is why they're all so large, though there were some high end gaming laptops I remember seeing with these in them, its possible these drives with out the sinks were designed for these as replacements or upgrades.

Newegg did sell them as OEM barebone kits with out the heatsinks as well.

so its possible that one is new.

The cooler linked there isn't the same as the heatsink they come with, as those are more or less just a thin piece of metal with a fan on it, the heatsink they come in is an actual solid chunk of diecast metal more or less.

The drive on Ebay probably comes with the adapter with the seller adding them for convenience for practically almost nothing.

not sure if the ones on Newegg ever came with any or not though.

When I was reading up on the 300GB refurbs sold on Newegg, I had also found that there were some IBM branded models that were rebadged WD Velociraptors as well.

The drive listed on ebay doesn't have an actual WD label on it, so I'm willing to bet that the bare drive kits were rebadged drives made by WD for other companies, like IBM, and installed in their PC's, possibly smaller form factor PC's or Business/server PC's...

which might account for the lack of heatsink as well.

**MegalosSkylaki** · July 7th, 2012, 03:35 AM

Many of these are SATA 2 which I believe subtract from the benefit of 10,000 rpm when compared SATA 3. I recall the bump from SATA to SATA was miniscule but the bump from 2 to 3 was significant.

What do you think of this solid state drive and why is there no mention of the trim instruction? Not applicable on 6 or what

BeachCamera.com - Intel 520 Series 180 GB SATA 6 Gb/s 2.5-Inch Solid-State Drive - SSDSC2CW180A3K5 [FREE shipping and No tax outside of NJ]

Is SATA 6 backward compatible with SATA3?
I don't even recall seeing a SATA 6 computer.

MegalosSkylaki

**ShyguyXPC** · July 7th, 2012, 07:45 AM

10,000 RPM didn't even approach the max bandiwidth that SATA II could get, so no need.

SATA III is more catered towards SSD Drives and the like. SATA was 150MB/s, SATA II was 300MB/s, SATA III Is 600MB/s.

running 2 in RAID 0, you might be able to get near the max of SATA II bandwidth, but I doubt it will be that close.

Serial ATA - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As to SATA 6 or 3? there is no 6, its 1, 2, 3.

the SSD has Trim, reason it doesn't state it is because its nearly standard on every SSD on the market these days.

Same reason most standard HDD's don't necessarily list the S.M.A.R.T. feature on their descriptions.

**ShyguyXPC** · July 7th, 2012, 07:54 AM

this is what I get for my 74GB V-Raptor for drive speeds.

And thats just a single drive, no RAID or anything.

**MegalosSkylaki** · July 7th, 2012, 10:35 AM

Why am I thinking of 100 to 150 to 300?

Were these ye olde IDE(ATA) levels?

So a SATA2 level HDD non-SSD is perfectly fine? I probably have some in storage.

**ShyguyXPC** · July 7th, 2012, 03:51 PM

Yeah 100 was side or ata (aka pata) .

Sata was 150 to start, then went to 300 & so on.

**ShyguyXPC** · July 8th, 2012, 03:08 AM

was typing above post on phone on my lunch hour at work yesterday.

Couldn't concentrate while typing, as I had one of the new young'n cutie cashiers chatting with me, just making conversation while I was minding my own business, seems to be the very friendly and talkative type, found out she used to live down the street from me years ago in my home town. Though I'm 15 years older than her, while talking reminiscing about the old house and stuff, she asked how old I was, when I mentioned 35, she was floored and stunned, apparently thought I was 28 at the most or something... her fiance looks older than me, and is only 28.

So made me feel good LOL, 2nd time in about a month or two, one of the younger 20 something females at work was talking to me, and surprised as all heck I was 35, thinking I was in my mid to late 20's at most.

personally I don't think I look that young, plus I know of a couple of guys from my graduating class, that still look like they are 18 or 19... of course (twins) they still have yet to grow up, partying, womanizing, knocking women up, etc... but anyways, LOL.

What I was trying to say, was that the old PATA, or EIDE, ATA 100 and 133 was 100 and 133 MB/s burst speeds.

ATA 33 and 66 was before those.

the first gen SATA was 150MB/s burst speeds. Which is what the Original WD Raptors were as well, but those you were lucky to see over 100MB continuous speeds on.

really depends on the files and sizes of them on how fast the drive will actually perform, as well as where they're located on the platters.

as you can see I don't get that much better in drive speeds on my system with the better performing Velociraptor which is SATA 2nd Gen, 300MB/s burst speeds.

even my 750GB WD Black series, also SATA II, gets about same performance as the Velociraptor, which is why these Black series was so popular, 7200RPM, SATA II, greater storage capacity and nearly as fast as the Velociraptors.

not to mention less in price.

Attached HD Tune bench of the 750GB and even one of my lowly 1.5TB WD Green Series, which has a nice 64MB Cache, but its a slower 5400RPM Drive if I remember right, also SATA II, but much slower read/write speeds.

the Green series has slower Read/Write speeds, mainly due to the slower RPM I think, but its Burst Speed is higher than the Black series, because of the 64MB Cache, and the Blacks got only a 32MB Cache (some of the newer black series in SATA II and III have 64MB cache).

but thats why the Green is being used for backing up data to and what not, doesn't need to be fast.

from what I remember reading the Velociraptor was better for OS and smaller file sizes being used, faster in that respect than the Black series, but not by much.

though I don't have my OS optimized to run on the V-raptor either, so that could be holding it back a tad as well.

but Its been a couple months now, and I still don't have that much crap installed on my system, only a couple games, and the usual tools, and utility apps really.