I think I have a counterfeit Raptor

G

general

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Oct 14, 2004
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I bought two used Raptors. One of them won't run on my motherboard, but when I plug it into my 3ware it comes up as a WD400BB. They look identical, but I'm wondering if this is an old fake drive. Strange.
 
The drive looks just like the other Raptor and feels the same except the circuit board on bottom is different. They were manufactured a few years apart, so that could explain that. The drive in question shows as a failed drive when connected to my motherboard. On the bios of my 3ware card it shows as a not supported drive so it doesn't show up in the OS. 3ware sees it as a WD400BB. I'm thinking that maybe since it seems to be broken that the 3ware card is seeing it incorrectly.

I got the card from a seller with good feedback who was selling it on another forum. If it is counterfeit, I'm pretty sure he didn't make it. The 36's aren't that valuable anymore and it would be a huge pain to do with very little gain.
 
Strange indeed. Do you have any other controllers to try this with?
 
I just tried a SI3112 and it finds no device attached when I hook it up. I'm thinking that it's a broken Raptor being misread by my 3ware. The WD site lists it as under warranty. I think I'll just RMA it and let WD deal with it.
 
I don't know. THe drive is 4 years old so I was worried someone might have swapped the internals somehow. I'm taking it to the post office this afternoon. WD can fix it up for me.
 
first of all why would you buy used hard drives that old?

and why not just go with standard 7200 RPM drives in a raid?
 
general said:
I don't know. THe drive is 4 years old so I was worried someone might have swapped the internals somehow. I'm taking it to the post office this afternoon. WD can fix it up for me.
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What size Raptor is it supposed to be? If it's a four year old 150GB Raptor, you know you got hoodwinked.
 
400BB is a IDE 40 GB, but theres a 400BD that is a SATA 40 GB. Sounds suspicious to me, even if the card that detects it is broken, it shouldn't report it as a different drive, it queries the drive, and what it shows is what the drive proclaims it is. Maybe someone down the line bought cheap Caviars and relabeled them as Raptors hoping no one would notice :confused:
 
The old 36 gig raptors had a serrated edge so that it almost looks like thick cooling fins. I have an old 36 gig Raptor laying around, I could take a photo and post it if you want.
 
"first of all why would you buy used hard drives that old?

and why not just go with standard 7200 RPM drives in a raid?"

Because they're Raptors, have good shelf life and come with a solid 5 year warranty. They're also more inexpensive than new Raptors. Why not buy them. They're plenty fast. I just sold a 3.5 year old Raptor not too long ago for a hefty sum. They were priced well and from a good seller.

I don't need the storage space and wanted the performance of a 10k drive and wanted one that was more focused on a 24/7 operation.

The drive case of the drive in question was most definitely a Raptor case. The WD series came in a very square casing. This was a Raptor case. I've owned about 6 of them. I sent the drive USPS Prio yesterday, so I'll update the thread when I hear back from them.
 
i just dont see where people are getting this performance boost. a computer is only as fast as its slowest component. so unless you have an insane machine... it isnt worth it. thats how i see it anyway. i have had horrilbe experiences with raptors. i have had 7 out of 15 fail. all in different machines...
 
It's a server. I wanted fast disc performance and wanted them up and running so I spent the money. They are faster than 7200 drives pretty much across the board, so I bought them. I fail to see how it is such a big deal. Perhaps you could start a Why would anyone buy a Raptor thread. I'll sit back and watch the flames ensue. Quite frankly, it was this or SCSI drives and I went with these as they're cheaper, don't require a SCSI controller, would work on my 3ware SATA controller, and fit into my SATA hot swap bays. I have 10 of them and don't have more space in my 830 Stacker for SCSI hot swap bays. Were I to carry forward on your performance logic, I'd be running a 286. They are faster, so I got them.
 
oh yeah of course in a server its gonna make a difference. but for the average computer for gaming its not worth the money.

BTW... nice choice on not getting the scsi's :)
 
Actually, I disagree. The system boots faster, the swap space is faster and games/apps load faster with a faster drive. I can notice the different in a system running a fast drive vs. a regular desktop drive no doubt.
 
ok. but why not just go with a raid and benefit with more space? and or speed (raid 0) or protection (raid 3 or 5). im not arguing i just dont see why pay the extra $$$...
 
colbyman said:
ok. but why not just go with a raid and benefit with more space? and or speed (raid 0) or protection (raid 3 or 5). im not arguing i just dont see why pay the extra $$$...
Click to expand...

Because, depending on application, raid 0 can actually slow things down. A web server, for example, serving 100k jpegs from a 64k-striped raid 0 array would require both disks to seek instead of just one to retrieve the next image. When you're serving a lot of requests, that can make a big difference. A raid 1 would be better for this example; then either disk can serve that request and the other disk is still idle to handle another request.

I can't think of an example where a higher-RPM disk will slow things down as compared to a single 7200 rpm disk from the same era. Thus, a single fast disk is a safer choice to get high performance than a bunch of slow ones.
 
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