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.
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retrospooty - Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - link
How do you enable/disable NCQ? I can't find anything on that.Gary Key - Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - link
This is accomplished through the NVIDIA SW-IDE driver settings. I will post a how to this evening.
retrospooty - Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - link
Thanks, I found it, based on your clue above... I was looking at the drive props, not the IDE controller props... Duh.Live - Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - link
Care to enlighten the rest of us?
retrospooty - Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - link
Go to your system props>device manager>SATA controller, and uncheck the option.I have the latest Nforce 4 drivers loaded, so I cant say its exactly the same for earlier versions, or Intel/other chipsets, but that would be the logical place to look.
Live - Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - link
I am wondering the same thing. Since it seems NCQ is not worth it for desktop use how do you disable it?mlittl3 - Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - link
This review goes into way too much depth about NCQ vs. no NCQ. I can't remember if they say how to disable it. It is also a great review comparing SCSI vs. Raptor and SATA vs. Raptor performance. It is the most indepth review to date of all raptor drives except it leaves out Raid tests.http://www.storagereview.com/articles/200601/WD150...">http://www.storagereview.com/articles/200601/WD150...
mlittl3 - Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - link
Whoops, I meant to imply that the Storagereview.com review goes into way too much detail about NCQ, not the Anandtech review. :)Gary Key - Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - link
I understood that from your original statement. We wanted to go into more detail but the new game and multi-tasking benchmarks were not ready yet. Hopefully, we can provide more details in the near future.
Gary Key - Wednesday, February 8, 2006 - link
Eugene Ra provides excellent information and analysis. :-) We are expanding our test suites at this time and will be providing a more in-depth analysis of drives in the near future. Also, we will be expanding our RAID coverage depending upon the drive being tested (will it make a difference). There is certainly a need to do RAID analysis but it should include more than RAID 0 which only provides benefits in certain benchmarks. ;->