Western Digital WD1500ADFD: King Raptor
by Gary Key on February 8, 2006 1:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
Feature Set and Test Setup: WD1500ADFD
Both drives feature a 1.2 million MTBF hour rating and receive a 24-hour factory burn-in while offering a 5-year warranty. The 150GB version will run approximately $300 compared to $169 for the current 74GB drive. The Raptor X edition is currently listed in the $350 range.
Our test platform differs slightly from the previous version with the inclusion of the Asus A8N-SLI Premium board and the 81.98 video driver set. All drives are tested with NCQ or TCQ off unless otherwise noted. We have added the Samsung SP2504C and Maxtor MaXLine III 7L300S0 drives into our benchmark results for comparison to the Western Digital Raptor series.
Our test suite consists of the standard benchmarks utilized at this time. We will be expanding our application and game benchmarks in the near future to further provide real world test results across a variety of programs.
The WD740GD-00FLA1 is listed on the charts as "Western Digital Raptor WD740GD-00FLA1 (74GB)" in the description field. The replacement drive for this model and the WD740GD-00FLA2 is the WD740GD-00FLC0. The WD740GD-00FLC0 is listed on the charts as "Western Digital Raptor WD740GD-00FLC0 (74GB)" in the description field.
| Specification | Western Digital Raptor WD1500ADFD | Western Digital Raptor WD740GD-00FLC0 |
| Capacity: | 150GB | 74GB |
| Interface: | SATA 150 MB/s | SATA 150 MB/s |
| Rotational Speed: | 10,000 RPM | 10,000 RPM |
| Buffer Size: | 16 MB | 8 MB |
| Average Latency: | 2.99 ms (nominal) | 2.99 ms (nominal) |
| Read Seek Time: | 4.6 ms | 4.5 ms |
| Write Seek Time: | 5.2 ms (average) | 5.9 ms (average) |
| Track to Track Seek Time: | 0.4 ms (average) | 0.6 ms (average) |
| Full Stroke Seek Time: | 10.2 ms (average) | 10.2 ms (average) |
| Transfer Rate - Buffer to Disk: | 84 MB/s (sustained) | 72 MB/s (sustained) |
| Number of Heads: | 4 | 4 |
| Number of Platters: | 2 | 2 |
| Command Queuing: | Native Command Queuing | Tagged Command Queuing |
| Acoustics- WD: | Idle - 29dBA Seek Mode 0 - 36dBA |
Idle - 32dBA Seek Mode 0 - 36dBA |
| Other Features: | TLER - RAID Specific RAFF FlexPower |
FlexPower |
Both drives feature a 1.2 million MTBF hour rating and receive a 24-hour factory burn-in while offering a 5-year warranty. The 150GB version will run approximately $300 compared to $169 for the current 74GB drive. The Raptor X edition is currently listed in the $350 range.
| Performance Test Configuration | |
| Processor: | AMD Athlon 64 3500+ (Venice E4) utilized for all tests |
| Memory: | 2 x 512MB OCZ PC4800 Elite Platinum Settings- DDR400 at (2-2-2-5, 1T) |
| Hard Drive(s): | 1 x Maxtor MaXLine III 7L300S0 300GB 7200 RPM SATA (16MB Buffer) 1 x Samsung SpinPoint P Series SP2504C 250GB 7200 RPM SATA (8MB Buffer) 1 x Western Digital Raptor WD740GD-00FLC0 74GB 10,000 RPM SATA (8MB Buffer) 1 x Western Digital Raptor WD1500ADFD 150GB 10,000 RPM SATA (16MB Buffer) |
| System Platform Drivers: | NVIDIA Platform Driver - 6.70 |
| Video Card: | 1 x Gigabyte 6600GT (PCI Express) for all tests |
| Video Driver: | NVIDIA nForce 81.98 WHQL |
| Cooling: | Thermaltake Big Typhoon |
| Power Supply: | OCZ Power Stream 520 |
| Operating System(s): | Windows XP Professional SP2 |
| Motherboards: | Asus A8N-SLI Premium |
Our test platform differs slightly from the previous version with the inclusion of the Asus A8N-SLI Premium board and the 81.98 video driver set. All drives are tested with NCQ or TCQ off unless otherwise noted. We have added the Samsung SP2504C and Maxtor MaXLine III 7L300S0 drives into our benchmark results for comparison to the Western Digital Raptor series.
| AnandTech Storage Test Applications | |
| iPEAK- Business Winstone: | A capture and test playback of all I/O operations within VeriTest's Business Winstone 2004 suite. |
| iPEAK- Content Creation Winstone: | A capture and test playback of all I/O operations within VeriTest's Multimedia Content Creation Winstone 2004 suite. |
| Synthetic Benchmarks: | WinBench 99 HD Tach 3.01 Everest Ultimate Edition 2.50 PCMark 2005 - HD Tests |
| Single Application Tests: | Timed tests of file copying, zipping, and unzipping operations. |
| Multi-Tasking Tests: | Timed tests of file zipping and data import operations. |
| Game Load Tests: | Half-Life, Doom3, and Command & Conquer: Generals |
Our test suite consists of the standard benchmarks utilized at this time. We will be expanding our application and game benchmarks in the near future to further provide real world test results across a variety of programs.
The WD740GD-00FLA1 is listed on the charts as "Western Digital Raptor WD740GD-00FLA1 (74GB)" in the description field. The replacement drive for this model and the WD740GD-00FLA2 is the WD740GD-00FLC0. The WD740GD-00FLC0 is listed on the charts as "Western Digital Raptor WD740GD-00FLC0 (74GB)" in the description field.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
51 Comments
View All Comments
Gary Key - Monday, February 20, 2006 - link
Maybe we should do a RAID 5 test only.....the RAID 0 results are what you expect them to be at this time, very good in two system benchmarks but slower in a couple of games..... ;->
mlittl3 - Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - link
Here you go.http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=rap...">http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=rap...
http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/02/06/wd1500ad_ra...">http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/02/06/wd1500ad_ra...
Two articles with raid numbers.
Wesley Fink - Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - link
The THG review only compares a single 150 Raptor to a RAID 0 with slower drives, but it does use a few real-world benchmarks. The other review tests RAID 0 with these Raptors but only uses synthetic benchmarks. Synthetic benchmarks are useful, but they are only part of the performance picture. Results with real-world benchmarks - particularly in RAID 0 - are very different.Live - Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - link
The tests linked are not very good. GamePC uses synthetic benchmarks which are not indicative of real world desktop performance. The Iometer in particular is not useful for single user scenarios and never was. Basically Gamepc doesn’t know what they are doing (or since they sell the stuff maybe that’s just what they do...)We all RAID-O improves performance a lot in Synthetic benchmarks. It does however not do the same for real world tests and certainly not in a cost effective way. I highly doubt SATA or this new raptor changes that. But would be interesting nonetheless to see some tests on the matter.
rjm55 - Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - link
This is the best hard drive review I've seen on AT in a very long time. Great job, guys. The history of Raptors at the start was a nice touch to help me better understand what WD is doing. I also think this is the first drive review I have seen by Gary Key. Bring us some more like this one.Live - Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - link
I have to agree this was really a step up as far as hardrive reviews go. Nice to see you are improving your thermal and acoustics testing. Keep up the good work!!!Rolphus - Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - link
Agreed - great review, and it was really interesting and useful to get an understanding of the evolution of the product.My only question is, why wasn't Raptor+NCQ added as part of the multi-tasking tested? I can see that being a useful indicator of desktop performance, especially as dual-core CPUs become more prevalent.
Rolphus - Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - link
That would be multi-tasking tests. Only had one coffee so far.Gary Key - Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - link
We will be investigating the effects of NCQ in more detail in the near future. We are working on a revised benchmark suite that consists of more real world applications and varying multi-task scenarios.ohnnyj - Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - link
In some of the graphs there are two 74GB Raptors, are these two different revisions?John