An ode to the 10,000 RPM Western Digital (Veloci)Raptor • Hacker News Board

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

#91

Post by gfody » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 3:12 AM UTC

~2004 I whiteboxed a db server with 48 raptors (WD800GD) via 3 16-port sata raid controllers (areca ARC-1160 w/1gb dram and bbu modules), I striped all 16 in 3 raid0s and put them in a soft raid4 for ~2.5tb of speedy local attached storage. the datacenter guys thought I was nuts for using consumer stuff in a server but at the time sas prices were out of my reach and I was willing to take the risk.

the server performed great and I eventually made 2 more of them before we were acquired and the pros took over - what's funny is the pros only used dell servers and ended up having to go with some outrageously expensive top-end models to get the iops that my whiteboxes were delivering.

144 raptors in production for 3 years under heavy load and we never lost a single drive. we had the servers sent back to us when they were decommissioned and most of the raptors ended up in peoples' workstations for another couple years and I never heard that any of those drives ever failed.

legendary HDD

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

#92

Post by mrtweetyhack » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 4:46 AM UTC

gfody wrote: post #91

~2004 I whiteboxed a db server with 48 raptors (WD800GD) via 3 16-port sata raid controllers (areca ARC-1160 w/1gb dram and bbu modules), I striped all 16 in 3 raid0s and put them in a soft raid4 for ~2.5tb of speedy local attached storage. the datacenter guys thought I was nuts for using consumer stuff in a server but at the time sas prices were out of my reach and I was willing to take the risk. the server performe…

I never heard my old cars stopped running so they must be running

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

#93

Post by et2o » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 4:54 AM UTC

a-dub wrote: post #72

in the mid 90s, i once found a 2gb barracuda (1st gen 7200rpm 3.5" double height hard disk) in the ez-ad. there wasn't much market for huge server type drives where i lived, and the owner was interested in a trade of some random bike parts and a cd-rom drive (a screaming deal, but honestly he just wanted to get rid of it). it would heat the whole case it was mounted in and make enough noise to be heard rooms away...…

Amazing find. Just curious-why would anyone buy this today? For retro-computing/nostalgia??

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

#94

Post by smashed » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 5:47 AM UTC

et2o wrote: post #93

a-dub wrote: post #72

in the mid 90s, i once found a 2gb barracuda (1st gen 7200rpm 3.5" double height hard disk) in the ez-ad. there wasn't much market for huge server type drives where i lived, and the owner was interested in a trade of some random bike parts and a cd-rom drive (a screaming deal, but honestly he just wanted to get rid of it). it would heat the whole case it was mounted in and make enough noise to be heard rooms away...…

Amazing find. Just curious-why would anyone buy this today? For retro-computing/nostalgia??

And who would on to such stock?? Surely these are not still manufactured??

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

#95

Post by peterangular » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 6:17 AM UTC

Wow. Nostalgia...

They were insanely reliable/performant drives and after reading enough reviews I couldn't resist back in the day. Regarding benchmarks, they definitely had a bit more pep by the numbers.

My two 10k WD RPM's ended up in a redundant RAID in my Sun W2100z. They ran over a decade with 24/7 use as a Debian/Ubuntu OS LVM.

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

#96

Post by peterangular » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 6:28 AM UTC

a-dub wrote: post #72

in the mid 90s, i once found a 2gb barracuda (1st gen 7200rpm 3.5" double height hard disk) in the ez-ad. there wasn't much market for huge server type drives where i lived, and the owner was interested in a trade of some random bike parts and a cd-rom drive (a screaming deal, but honestly he just wanted to get rid of it). it would heat the whole case it was mounted in and make enough noise to be heard rooms away...…

In the late 90's/early naughts I was a kid riding my bicycle from garage sale to garage sale and ran across one of these w/all of the random crap to make it work in an early Pentium PC. PCI card and all - I was jacked man. I can remember the neighborhood I got it from and that it was a very hot summer day.

It was obsolete by the time I had gotten my hands on it but I remember being so damn surprised by how loud/hot it was to get it working in one of my legacy systems. It was my first experience as a kiddo with datacenter-esque hardware + SCSI. I think I got Slackware installed on it and then just gave up on it subconsciously due to how much of a PIA it was...

Thanks for sharing that link... wouldn't have realized it was the same drive as my nostalgia-blast if not for the pics. That Barracuda sticker was badass.

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

#97

Post by hef19898 » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 6:30 AM UTC

hef19898 wrote: post #53

crypt0x wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Came here to make exactly this post. Thank you.

An SSD is soulless, a Veliciraptor was top of the line unicorn Mike beast of HDDs. I still habe one in my old Tower, happily running. Not even too noisy. Well, at least not if you don't use a SSD equppied machine when bo Fans are running as a comparison.

No idea what auto correct did with that post, I turned of everything I found that could effect the words I'm typing now so. Seems to be impossible to type regularly in thre languages otherwise on mobile...

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

#98

Post by a-dub » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 6:40 AM UTC

et2o wrote: post #93

a-dub wrote: post #72

in the mid 90s, i once found a 2gb barracuda (1st gen 7200rpm 3.5" double height hard disk) in the ez-ad. there wasn't much market for huge server type drives where i lived, and the owner was interested in a trade of some random bike parts and a cd-rom drive (a screaming deal, but honestly he just wanted to get rid of it). it would heat the whole case it was mounted in and make enough noise to be heard rooms away...…

Amazing find. Just curious-why would anyone buy this today? For retro-computing/nostalgia??

if i recall a few years later, i had an hp9000 at work that had an array of them. it wouldn't surprise me one bit if there were still hp9000s, as/400s or other similar datacenter class unix(ish) server hardware out there that is still in production where replacing a failed disk with the exact same model, even if refurbed, is the safest option for solving the problem with old hardware that can be difficult to replace running software that isn't backed up that no one even understands, yet is critical to some large business.

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

#99

Post by zerocount » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 6:44 AM UTC

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 still have one in my desktop computer that I built in 2012. I remember looking at how much better my 'windows experience' score was!

Now it's just a secondary storage drive that filled up pretty quickly. It felt good to say, "I'm running a 10K raptor."

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

#100

Post by zerocount » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 6:51 AM UTC

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…

Speaking of dead silent, I had an old PowerEdge server that was anything but quiet, let alone silent. That thing sounded like a jet taking off! I had to wait for the wife and kids to leave before I could turn it on and start tinkering. It was real heavy and I would put it on the kitchen bar and hook up an old monitor to it and just geek out for a while.