New Western Digital Raptors

[Dutchmuzik]

Originally Posted by bassmurderer

Just incase anybody was about to buy a WD 150gb Raptor ..They are incompatible with the SATA architecture in the G5. Cannot copy large chunks of data (around 20gigs and over) and zero all data formatting will hang the finder.This from the horses mouth at Western Digital support, who were suprisingly helpfull..
Heres what he told me..

Response (James W.) 02/07/2006 02:20 AM
The drive is not compatible with the controller on a G5. The SATA controller on a G5 gives problems with our drives. We are working on a firmware update but we do not have one yet.

I would take the drive back, I do not know when the fix for these issues will be released. It should not have been sold as G5 compatible. The problems that we have on a MAC are the drive will not format or you cannot copy large amounts to it. It may therefore work if you can get the O/S on it, but I would recommend returning it to the shop.

I ordered one but haven't installed it after reading up on this problem, I called WDC and they said "it will NOT work properly in a G5, they are working on it with Apple". Real bummer

[bassmurderer]

I managed to get 10.4.4 running on the raptor..after many different aproaches, this worked.
Had to put it in the upper bay of my dual G5 2.5, start up off the tiger installer CD, format the drive (journaled) without zeroing data. Once i had a named partition, i 'wiped free space' affectively writing zeros to it. During this process Disk utility told me there was 42789967 hours remaining! I left it to bake for half an hour by which time it got to the end..Then installed the operating system

Obviously not for the faint hearted but it is working fine. I will send it back next week

[kudzu]

Originally Posted by Dutchmuzik

I ordered one but haven't installed it after reading up on this problem, I called WDC and they said "it will NOT work properly in a G5, they are working on it with Apple". Real bummer

I got the WD 400Gb, 16Mb cache, 7200rpm raptor running my OSX 10.4.4 and a WD 150Gb, 16Mb cache 10,000rpm in the other space in a 1st generation G5 dual 2ghz ... everythings fine
I didn't journal the 10,000rpm drive

[lordmiguel]

Originally Posted by Killah_Trakz

with the speeds attained by firewire and serial ata via external... whuts reeally the point of having our recording drives internal (i guess).

mostly price. but you can buy external drive enclosures for any configuration setup you would like. the selection of raid cards (for the g5) for external drives was far less than a year or two ago, now it is better. i've got six internal drives in my g5 and i'll be going external next time i upgrade, the extra fan noise isn't worth it anymore. but it sure was cheap.

[LongWave]

i want to buy one of these but im really worried about the heat.

ive got a dualcore computer which i assume is already creating a bit of heat inside the machine.

if i buy one of the raptor drives, what product will i need to make sure it's nice and cool?

also, as a seperate question, is there some kind of way of housing it externally without using firewire or usb (i presume these reduce the trackcount).

please point me to some items if poss because im not really an expert on this stuff!

[AlexLakis]

I have two Raptor drives running right on top of each other and I've never had a heat problem. I wouldn't worry about it.

There are some motherboards that come with (and I'm sure you can buy them otherwise) SATA extension backplates. That way, you can have the drives sitting outside your box if you're worried about heat.

[mtsupiano]

wow...I thought these things were old news.

I work in the tech sector and about a week and a half ago we recieved our first shipment of these drive (we got 30 or so). We are using them with SAS (Serial attached SCSI) and RAID and they are extremely fast. Because of our SAS and RAID set up we have been able to max out our processors (we use 2 dual-core opterons) before the hard-drives. Our systems are not done yet, but at the end of the week I should be able to post our sustained data rates for our set up.

[wyndrock]

...

[lordmiguel]

Originally Posted by mtsupiano

Because of our SAS and RAID set up we have been able to max out our processors (we use 2 dual-core opterons) before the hard-drives.

Is not too hard to do. Anyone running large drum, string or piano sample libraries, or a lot of plugs max out before their hd. I've got a dual 2.0 with 4 gigs of ram and my 4 raid SATA 7200 rpm never gets to 50%, its always the processors. And i always record at 24/96 with lotsa tracks.

[Jax]

Originally Posted by djui5

Yeah they are. I've got a SATA 10K 73GB inside my mac for working, and it's f'n awesome. SCSI can kiss MY ASS

Me too. It's killer!

[mtsupiano]

Originally Posted by lordmiguel

Is not too hard to do. Anyone running large drum, string or piano sample libraries, or a lot of plugs max out before their hd. I've got a dual 2.0 with 4 gigs of ram and my 4 raid SATA 7200 rpm never gets to 50%, its always the processors. And i always record at 24/96 with lotsa tracks.

Yeah, I probably should have told you what we do. We build custom video systems. Before these drives and SAS configurations came along we we maxing out our hard-drives well before our processors. In the real world, audio isn't really that taxing on hard-dives. Pulling a bunch of 24/96 audio of the hard drive isn't a problem. But when you start talking about playing back multiple uncompressed HD video streams (24fps and 46MBps) and their associated audio files the hard drives really get a work out.

[littledoodler]

will they release 10,000rpm for external hard drives?

[raydo]

stick a sata bridge in a firewire case wirh a raptor

[charleslee]

So, are these 10K rpm 150Gb Raptors certified fine on the new PCI-e G5s yet? any news from WD ?

[lozion]

Originally Posted by raydo

stick a sata bridge in a firewire case wirh a raptor

Ok, I was lucky to buy an old glyph mproject firewire enclosure on ebay for a mere 64$ (800$ back in 2002) with a 40G ide drive. Do you know if I could swap the old drive for a new Raptor using an ATA to SATA bridge? Can you recommend which or where I can find such an adapter? Thanks,

[sricabla]

I want to get a Raptor for my Mac. Is all well for using it for PT? Just plug and play?

Any thoughts and comments?

Thanks in advance

[T_R_S]

Originally Posted by charleslee

So, are these 10K rpm 150Gb Raptors certified fine on the new PCI-e G5s yet? any news from WD ?

I have had a 150 GB Raptor in my G5 2.5 PCI-X machine with zero problems for about a month.
Even My temperature Wiget works on it

[mwd]

I've been using 3 stacked 74GB Raptors for a year in a 4 year old machine not designed for SATA. Used a Syba Sata Controller and had no power supply change. Also plugged in a Syba IDE adapter to my NEC3520A CD/DVD burner to convert it to SATA as well.

Over a year now, blazing speed, instant boot and no heat or power issues.

Looking forward to checking out the new 150/16mb cache model and possibly trading my 8mb cache 74 Raptors in on the new generation 16mb cache models.

Which makes me wonder if you Mac users (with the Raptor woes) can install a SATA card and bypass your SATA troubles?

[kudzu]

Originally Posted by mwd

Which makes me wonder if you Mac users (with the Raptor woes) can install a SATA card and bypass your SATA troubles?

I ended up puting 2 x WD raptor 150/16mb cache models in a magma chassis ... just didn't like being inside a 1st gen Mac G5

[Riad]

I have two of the 73gb 10k SATA Raptors running in my PT HD2 PC rig... these drives rock. Not sure I would get the 150gb drives. I use one drive for tracking, then I save session copy in to the mixing drive, then I copy both to my LaCie 500gb firewire drive.

The clear case on the HD is amusing but once it's in your system you can't see it anyway.

[Elak]

Heat + Noise