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An ode to the 10,000 RPM Western Digital (Veloci)Raptor

louwrentius.com

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Re: An ode to the 10,000 RPM Western Digital (Veloci)Raptor

#81

Post by alphabettsy »

jaynetics wrote: post #48
louwrentius wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Younger generations have absolutely no idea how much noise a computer of that era made, even if it didn't have a 10,000 RPM drive. And most people accepted it.

Thinking back it seems as if the user's needs were much less central back then, and as if each component was trying to win the contest for your attention. CD-ROM: wrrroooooo HDD: sssrrrrrrrr clankclankclank ssssrrrr PC-Speaker when pressing too many keys: MEEEEP Modem: booooob, boop beep boop beep boop boop bli blu bri bru brrriiiiii BWANG BWANG BWANG KCHHHHHHHHH

Yea. They sounded much more like machinery than the mostly solid state wonders we have today.

Re: An ode to the 10,000 RPM Western Digital (Veloci)Raptor

#82

Post by fibonachos »

tiernano wrote: post #62
linker3000 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to work for HGST (now absorbed into WD) in the EMEA Enterprise Support lab. My main role was setting up PoC/testing systems, and support for high capacity SAS/helium drives, although I mostly worked with high-capacity flash boards and arrays. The 15K rpm drives could sometimes be quite noisy; especially with 48 or more in an array. Three of the engineers with whom I worked specialised in disk failure analysis;…

I have 300GB wd velociraptors for many years in one of my machines... going back 10 years, only got replaced last year... probably didn't need to be replaced, one drive out of a raid 0 array died, the other probably still works... but on the note of hearing differences in sounds, back in the day of dial up, since my ISP gave unlimited free dial up minutes, but it had to last no more than 2 hours (it would auto kick y…

Wow, this brought back some great memories :)

Re: An ode to the 10,000 RPM Western Digital (Veloci)Raptor

#83

Post by Moru »

alphabettsy wrote: post #80
post_break wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The X25-M felt like I V8 swapped my 2006 MacBook. That thing was world changing. The 10k drives were fast, but for mostly laptop users the SSD was such a shift in speed it was uncanny.

+1. Made me realize that the processor and ram aren’t everything when it comes to a responsive system.

Having the operating system in ROM on an Atari helped a lot with boot times. Windows still has a bit left to boot times of old computers...

Re: An ode to the 10,000 RPM Western Digital (Veloci)Raptor

#84

Post by Dylan16807 »

Trigg3r wrote: post #22
bombcar wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

20,000 RPM disks were trialed but I don’t know if they ever saw production. Part of the problem is keeping the platters together at those speeds; and about that time SSDs took over.

Yeah that's what I thought, similar to CD's couldn't spin much faster without shattering iirc, rather than being a head read speed issue

A 50x CD drive actually reaches 10,000RPM, and that's with a cheap and wide piece of plastic. So I really doubt holding together is the limiting factor for these drives.

Re: An ode to the 10,000 RPM Western Digital (Veloci)Raptor

#85

Post by mikepurvis »

lttlrck wrote: post #67
steve_adams_86 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know for me there’s something innately gratifying about the hardware actually becoming faster, not just the storage functions. It’s like a faster car, or some other machine actually doing whatever it does with more power and precision. SSDs are totally better, yeah. But it’s also kind of boring from a mechanical perspective. Insanely beefy mechanical hard drives have a certain charm that SSDs will never have.

This sentiment also maps onto BEV and ICE for me. I love the utility, performance and efficiency of newer tech, but mechanical machines are far more awe inspiring to me. They're more organic somehow, even though that's the definition of an oxymoron. Haha.

Years ago I participated in a few adult LEGO robotics competitions with a group in Toronto, and one of the peculiarities about the Mindstorms kit was that each RCX (the control module) had just three motor outputs and three sensor inputs. So you could do a bit of hackery like doubling up your sensors, and obviously in the extreme case you could go multi-RCX and have them talk to each other over infrared.

But that constraint always really pushed people toward finding pure mechanical solutions to problems that in the real world would just be solved by slapping on another servo. One of my favourite examples was a single-motor steered castor, where a ratcheting mechanism switched between wheel driving and castor rotation based on which way you ran the motor.

I think another factor with it is just that LEGO makes the pursuit of a mechanism-type solution inexpensive, effortless, and fun, whereas in "real" industrial automation, every new gear or bearing is another point of failure, one more thing requiring lubrication check-ups and so on.

Re: An ode to the 10,000 RPM Western Digital (Veloci)Raptor

#86

Post by Symbiote »

ggreer wrote: post #58
serf wrote: post #51

not much around that's as satisfying sounding as starting up a big full-size ATX case crammed with raptors. starting up a big lathe or mill spindle, or maybe a large phase converter with a heavy lever switch come close, but they don't scratch that "i'm in a super computer lab" itch as much as the fantastic whir of a raptor RAID. utilitarian feature : you could hear a bad sector from anywhere in a large room.

The motors in a Tesla can go up to 18,000rpm (20,000rpm in the carbon-wrapped Plaid motors). They sound pretty cool when you floor it.[1] Though once you pick up speed all you can hear is wind noise. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Rg75JbVOpg

For vehicle motors, I think you should look to the Siemens Taurus locomotive.

Though half an hour of clips is a bit excessive.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=J-IC-JRJYwc&vl=en

Re: An ode to the 10,000 RPM Western Digital (Veloci)Raptor

#88

Post by systemvoltage »

endymi0n wrote: post #60
kayson wrote: post #21

These drives felt so amazing back then. I put two in RAID0 in the first PC I ever built and it seemed mind blowingly fast. Super expensive at the time compared to other storage, but it was the best you could get on consumer grade hardware (i.e. SATA). For some reason I feel more fondly about the Raptors than I do about my first SSD (an Intel X25-M). Maybe it's just age...

I dunno. Like, yeah, I get it. There‘s quite a few sounds that trigger emotional reactions in me. The whirring and buzzing of the PSU. The Award BIOS beep. The seeking sound of an empty 3.5 inch disk drive. The slight CRT zang between different resolutions - and the electrical drizzle of degaussing such a beast. But to this day nothing amazes me more than opening a MacBook and it being dead silent. Maybe it‘s because…

It was fun reading your post but then I realized, what are you arguing against? The OP is just reflecting on fond memories like you are. Not saying anything about modern computers.

Can I have fond memories while also appreciate modern hardware? Or they're just mutually exclusive?

Re: An ode to the 10,000 RPM Western Digital (Veloci)Raptor

#89

Post by KennyBlanken »

systemvoltage wrote: post #88
endymi0n wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno. Like, yeah, I get it. There‘s quite a few sounds that trigger emotional reactions in me. The whirring and buzzing of the PSU. The Award BIOS beep. The seeking sound of an empty 3.5 inch disk drive. The slight CRT zang between different resolutions - and the electrical drizzle of degaussing such a beast. But to this day nothing amazes me more than opening a MacBook and it being dead silent. Maybe it‘s because…

It was fun reading your post but then I realized, what are you arguing against? The OP is just reflecting on fond memories like you are. Not saying anything about modern computers. Can I have fond memories while also appreciate modern hardware? Or they're just mutually exclusive?

I didn't read their reply as merely responding to parent comment about being more fond of the 10k rpm drive than their first SSD, saying that they personally appreciated their first silent computer.

Like you said:

> The OP is just reflecting on fond memories like you are.

In fact, if you read it again, you'll see they are acknowledging the appeal and fondness for computer noises of old...

Re: An ode to the 10,000 RPM Western Digital (Veloci)Raptor

#90

Post by xeromal »

lttlrck wrote: post #67
steve_adams_86 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know for me there’s something innately gratifying about the hardware actually becoming faster, not just the storage functions. It’s like a faster car, or some other machine actually doing whatever it does with more power and precision. SSDs are totally better, yeah. But it’s also kind of boring from a mechanical perspective. Insanely beefy mechanical hard drives have a certain charm that SSDs will never have.

This sentiment also maps onto BEV and ICE for me. I love the utility, performance and efficiency of newer tech, but mechanical machines are far more awe inspiring to me. They're more organic somehow, even though that's the definition of an oxymoron. Haha.

Yup, I have a model S and it's a great daily driver, but my dad's old foxbody is leagues and bounds more exciting to drive even though it's slower and way older.
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