Hard Drives

Posted 09/09/08 at 04:47:48 PM by The Maximum PC Staff

Ask the Doctor Logo I have a brand-new rig that sports two WD Raptors in a mirrored array. I wanted the speed of the Raptors and the convenience of a mirrored array. But I wonder if a mirrored or striped array (1+0, 0+1, or some other RAID number) using four 7,200rpm drives would be faster than the above array. And how would the price compare?

—David Thiel

Delicious, speedy answers for David after the jump.

Comments: 7
TAGS: raptor, Western Digital, RAID, hard drives, ask the doctor, velociraptor

NewsIDF: Intel Pimps SSD to Hardcore Gamers

Posted 08/25/08 at 11:47:47 AM by Chris Moody

Intel is going to need to start dressing up in a tricked out leisure suit with lots of bling and a plumed hat if it keeps pimping SSD technology. On the last day of IDF 2008 Intel wanted to hammer home the reason why hardcore gamers should be interested in its mainstream and Extreme SSDs and it worked to dispel the myths that have sprung up with SSDs.

Chris Saleski from the Storage Technologies Group showed off some pretty spectacular benchmarks with 500 GB, 7200 RPM Seagate Barracuda drives in a RAID array, that were getting just under 550 IOPS versus a single 80GB X25M Mainstream SSD that was posting 44,000+ IOPS. Holy frack! I have to wonder just how accurate that figure is and I’ll keep an eye out for independent verification.

Falcon Northwest’s general manager Bradd Berdelman did another demo. He put a pair of identical FragBoxes together with one containing two of the vaunted 10,000 RPM WD Velociraptors in RAID, and the other FragBox ran an SSD setup. The SSD system turned in 32.65 FPS versus 16.76 FPS for the Velociraptor system.

Intel is preaching to the choir here. System enthusiasts like SSDs and we want to buy them, but when a single modern game can hog 6GB of drive space, we aren’t going to buy them in 80GB sizes for a king’s ransom. Put the products in our hands and if they start turning in those sort performance scores and we see a size increase/price decrease you’ll get us to buy them in droves. No pimping required.

Comments: 1
TAGS: intel, hard drives, hardware, IDF, ssd, build a pc, Solid State Drives, X25M SSD

ReviewsWestern Digital Velociraptor

Posted 08/12/08 at 11:00:00 AM by David Murphy

We’ve seen this day coming for a long time. There was no way that Western Digital was going to sit back and let other manufacturers usurp the Raptor’s place at the top of the storage speed charts. Consider the rule of the speedy terabyte drives a hiccup on the timeline. The Raptor is back: upgraded, renamed, and… physically smaller.

To read our full review of the Velociraptor (not the preview we gave you before), hit the jump.

Comments: 12
TAGS: Western Digital, hard drives, hardware, velociraptor, kick ass, reviews, build a pc

NewsMicron Will Release 256GB SSDs this Year, with Surprising Prices

Posted 08/05/08 at 11:51:18 AM by Paul Lilly

One of the biggest hurdles preventing solid state drives from bursting into the mainstream continues to be the relatively high price points compared to traditional hard drives. Recent strides have started to reverse this trend, with OCZ pushing its lower cost Core series and Super Talent slashing the price tag on its MasterDrive MX line, but SSDs still have a ways to go if they're to challenge HDDs for the bang-for-buck crown.

Stepping to the plate is Micron, who today announced it will ship a series of speedy SSDs up to 256GB in capacity as part of its next-generation RealSSD line. But the real story here is that Micron's new line will check in at one third the price per gigabyte of existing drives.

Hit the jump to see what Micron has to say about the RealSSD's pricing strategy after the jump.

Comments: 2
TAGS: storage, hard drives, hardware, ssd, solid state drive, build a pc, rigs, 256gb, micron

WatchdogHard Drives and Taxes

Posted 07/21/08 at 02:34:29 PM by The Maximum PC Staff

The Watchdog In your May 2008 issue, you made warm comments about HD Inspector from AltrixSoft. However, the trial version is not really fully featured, as you said, since you can check only the primary drive. All other drives are blocked. Also, these guys charge sales tax on downloaded software. No physical product is delivered, and there’s no way to complain about this. The real issue is the sales tax. This amounts to a 5 to 8 percent surcharge on the price of the product. I live in Boulder, CO. I highly doubt that the company is licensed to collect sales tax in Boulder, or in any other small town in America. This is fraud, and you should look a bit deeper before recommending some of these software vendors.

—Tom Wade

Well, Tom, the Dog has an answer for you after the jump.

Comments: 0
TAGS: Software, Hard Drive, Watchdog, hard drives, sales tax, hd inspector, altrixsoft

FeaturesThe Dream Machine Revealed--Part One of Three!

Posted 06/30/08 at 12:36:25 PM by David Murphy

Are you ready? Every year, Maximum PC builds the de-facto, pants-shattering, best-system-ever. We crown this stunning achievement of manufacturing gusto the Dream Machine. This is its eleventh incarnation, and perhaps its most controversial: the equipment, the enclosure, the build--not a single part of this year's rig was without debate.

In this epic three-part series, we're going to give you a first-look at exactly what's going in this holiest of rigs. And we're also going to walk you through its actual construction--coolant leaks and all--in one of the most demanding chassis we've ever slapped a machine into.

Start your grand journey into the heart of Maximum PC lab by clicking that tiny "Read More" link, and enjoy.

Comments: 65
TAGS: dream machine, mice, hard drives, hardware, keyboards, build a pc, rigs, displays

ReviewsWestern Digital Caviar Black

Posted 06/10/08 at 07:17:39 PM by David Murphy

Storage always makes for a curious world. Western Digital's newest entry into the terabyte contest--it's second, if you count the company's Caviar Green drive--is geared for enthusiast performance. One look at the insides of this Caviar Black drive tells the entire tale. This is Western Digital's first three-platter terabyte drive, mimicking a move towards increased access speeds and areal densities that Samsung made some four months ago with its HD103UJ terabyte drive.

Click Read More for more.