WD Raptor 74 GB Internal Hard Drive - 1 Pack

This drive is the fastest SATA...

Strengths: Very Fast

Weakness: Expensive, Slightly Loud

This drive is the fastest SATA drive you can buy right now. If you have the money, get this drive. Windows and games load in a snap with this thing. The first Raptor I received was damaged in shipping, but WD's quick RMA policy had me back up and running in 2 days. So far, I am very impressed with this drive.

By AGR964 - Oct 9, 2004

Leaving all other 10k RPM SCSI...

Strengths: Very fast drive.

Weakness: Quite loud.

Leaving all other 10k RPM SCSI drives in the dust, the WD740GD approaches the performance of the 15k RPM Fujitsu MAS3735 and Maxtor Atlas 15k. Overall, for non-server use, Western Digital's Raptor WD740GD is the fastest single hard disk one can buy regardless of spindle speed, interface, or price.

By akorotin - Oct 27, 2004

I purchased (2) 74g 10k RPM...

Strengths: ~Wicked Fast~ SCSI-killer

Weakness: Plastic connectors easy to snap; Most Win OS's do not recognize drives on "fresh" boot.

I purchased (2) 74g 10k RPM Raptors almost 10 months ago. I run a server test lab and dev environment on top-end pc equipment. I am always tearing them down, reconfiguring, etc. My personal box is an Intel GBF 865 chipset, 2.4gHz HTT, 2gb of Corsair XS 3200 (for that screaming 800 fsb) -I love how all of the stuff is on the board now - makes reconfiguring a LOT easier. In this setup, Raptors make...
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I purchased (2) 74g 10k RPM Raptors almost 10 months ago. I run a server test lab and dev environment on top-end pc equipment. I am always tearing them down, reconfiguring, etc. My personal box is an Intel GBF 865 chipset, 2.4gHz HTT, 2gb of Corsair XS 3200 (for that screaming 800 fsb) -I love how all of the stuff is on the board now - makes reconfiguring a LOT easier.

In this setup, Raptors make such a difference it's really unfair.....to the other machines. My only other comparable box is the same setup but with 3x 10k Seagate Cheeta SCSI (LVD) drives running on a 2940 SCSI Card. I have two 2940's installed, and run tape backup (Python) and a Plextor CD-RW drive on one, and the three drives on the other. I cheated on this box, and only dropped in 500mb of Corsair XS 3200. Speed is definitely still well above average, and only minor (read: not slight) differences can be noticed. THe biggest differenc eis in the boot times - Raptors are up in less than 15 seconds from start of Post. SCSI's take 5 times that long. - A small annoyance at worst.

in terms of bang for the buck, Raptor are far and away the cream of the crop. It's very difficult to go to anything less once you've driven a Ferrari. Visiting client sites is, well...less pleasant than it used to be :).

I do have 2 compaints about the SATA drives in general, design flaws mostly...

First: it you're unlucky enough to do some bone-head thing, the connectors will snap right off - and I mean the part where it attaches to the drive itself. This happened to me on Day One, so I've got a connector that is stuck inside the SATA cable housing, and bare Copper at the drive. Makes things rather interesting, but I take the time to position it correctly and it never seems to fall of (although barely on there).

Secondly, most Windows 2000, XP, and Windows Server 2003 OS's will go through the instal routine, but then fail and say they do not recognize any valid drives. Sometimes when I have successfully installed, if I go to Disk Manager it still has some funky info for each drive, especially the primary boot partition. I have a Chaintech 9J board (sweet) but it wouldn't / couldn;t see those drives no matter what I did. All of my Intel boards did just fine | ` as long as you remember to downlaod and create a bootable CD-ROM if you happen to lose the original ship disk. Ouch.

Now if they could just get the CPU clock over it's core of 200mHz, and the back side bus=FSB. Whine.

Pros: Lightning Fast (literally), good Consumer-grade RAID; works superbly on Windows Server 2003 in all RAID configurations.

Cons: Difficulty "finding" drives without CMOS AND Driver configs prior to OS install (similar to true Server Architecture); el-Cheapo plastic connectors at the drive housing and on the Board itself.

SATA is the SCSI-killer.

Next purchase: SATA External RAID enclosure. Sweet.

The 74 gb drives (in pairs) is perfect for striping or stand-alone for normal/power users.

By Punchy - Nov 26, 2004

Get the cooling system just in...

Strengths: As soon as I got it i put into my custom built computer and booted up with Windows XP home and it worked very fast. I would highly suggest this harddrive to anyone. Fast Fast Fast.

Weakness: it gets a little hot so what i did was i got a harddrive cooling system for like 12 bucks and everything works great.

Get the cooling system just in case.I would highly recommened this to any one. Espically to someone buiding a custom computer.I have naver seen a computers harddrive work this fast.

By navy_seal3333 - Aug 30, 2004

Installed XP 32 bit in 8 minutes...

Strengths: Installed XP 32 bit in 8 minutes with =3200+ athlon64

Weakness: Price (I guess) , but it is 10,000 rpm!! Space but I decided to use the 10,000 rpm for all software needs and store music files and video on old 120gb 7200rpm ide drive

Installed XP 32 bit in 8 minutes with =3200+ athlon64!!

I am excited by the quick response of the product and I am excited to see how it loads games and graphics as well.

By jameslwhitfield - Sep 2, 2004