6860FX with 10,000 RPM eSATA worth it?

I just got the 6860 from best buy on sale and was wondering since I'm using it as a possible desktop replacement so it will always be plugged in, would running an external 10k RPM Raptor be alot faster then upgrading the internal to a 7200 RPM drive? I already have the Raptor I can mooch from my desktop so the only cost would be the enclosure. Great laptop btw.

Many Thanks,
M.

 

Depends on the interface you use. If you're using USB, you'll be limited either way to about 25MB/s maximum. If you use Firewire it will be slightly faster, but the only interface you can benefit from is eSATA, which is ridiculously fast (1.5 or 3.0Gbps). Any other enclosure would not do the Raptor justice.

 

Considering the thread topic, id say hes talking about using eSATA.

And yes, it absolutely flys. I have my old 150gb Raptor in a esata case I got from newegg and it works like a dream. Id say at least 30-40% faster than my 500gb external SATA drive. the big downfall is capacity. That is unless you are willing to spend oodles for the 300gb velociaptor.

 

not like i am experienced enough to comment but . . . is this inquiry for data storage or to run the os off of? i am in the market for an esata storage setup for myself and not yet considered the possibility for the external os load.

 

Even if you upgrade your hdd to 7200k you will be needing raid 0 setup to get fast enough and i don't thing you will get as fast as Raptor on eSATA

 

Thanks for the info. I picked up an Antec MX-1 Actively Cooled Enclosure and bummed the 2nd raptor outa my XP Pro desktop. I will be using the Raptor for gaming, not gona try and load an OS. I ran HD Tune and attached the results. Do those look about right or do I have some tuning to do? I thought the Raptor had a 4.5ms access time. hmm

Many Thanks,
M

 

keep in mind that the hard drive has to go through the e-SATA controller and travel down the e-SATA cord before it can access the information stored on the raptor. and with that in mind, i would say that the HD tune benchmark would be about right, since the raptor is in the enclosure and not hooked directly into a sata controller.

 

Regardless of how fast your external eSATA drive is, you will still rely on your internal drives for the loading of Windows and all programs. You can use the external drives as your Program Files folder, which in the case of using a 10K RPM Raptor, will net you some benefit when it comes to loading your programs, however it will still have nothing to do with Windows itself. The big disadvantage to putting your Program Files on the eSATA drive is that as soon as you unplug that drive to go mobile, you will not be able to run any of your programs that were installed to your eSATA drive until you plug it back in. This will also cause any dependencies on that particular File to cause errors.

Installing a 7200 RPM internal drive will net you better overall performance and installing two in RAID 0 will be even better. The absolute fastest using conventional spinning disks would be Windows installed on a 7200 RPM RAID 0 with your Program Files installed to the 10K RPM Raptor via the eSATA. Once again, that would only work if you use it solely as a desktop replacement and never go mobile.

I have attached an screen shot of 2 Hitachi 7200 RPM drives in RAID 0. You will see that the access time is much higher than that of the faster spinning 10,000 RPM Raptor, but he overall throughput isn't too shabby. Combine the two, 7200 RPM RAID 0 and 10,000 RPM eSATA and you'd have a sick setup if you seperate your Program Files from your Windows files.

 

What Done said...

I've found no way (yet) to boot off an eSata drive. Disappointing. Has anyone come across a solution?

 

Microsoft doesn't want Windows installed on external drives, so during the install process, it will determine if the drive is fixed or not before it lets you install it.

There are very complicated workarounds to this, but I felt that they were too much of a hassle.

 

Actually, disregard my last.

http://www.microsoft.com/communitie...6-ba1a8875c1a7&lang=en&cr=&sloc=en-us&m=1&p=1

 

I have that same enclosure. Although a bit expensive and bulky it works great with a VERY quiet fan.