New WD VelociRaptor HDD to Take HDD Closest to SSD

btarunr · Apr 5, 2010

First surfaced earlier this year, Western Digital (WD) is just about ready with its newest line of VelociRaptor high-performance hard drives. The second generation of VelociRaptor will take a shot at much expensive solid state drives on two fronts: transfer speeds and access times, at highly competitive price-per-gigabyte. With transfer speeds, the new VelociRaptor drives offer sustained read speeds of 145 MB/s, while having access times of 3 ms, as close as it gets to flash storage. These are conventional (Winchester) hard drives with spindle-speeds of 10,000 rpm, double the areal density as its previous generation and having an onboard cache of 32 MB, with the standard SATA 6 Gb/s interface.

The actual drives come in thick 2.5" form-factor, with a 3.5" bay mounting frame that also serves as a heatsink since it has aluminum ridges. The drives have a noise-output of up to 37 dBA. WD rates its MTBF at 1.4 million hours, and backs it with a five-year company warranty. The drives come in capacities of 150 GB, 300 GB, 450 GB, and 600 GB with prices expected to be highly competitive with SSDs in terms of price-per-gigabyte, given its performance level.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

brandonwh64 · Apr 5, 2010

WOW! i can think of raid 0 about now

erixx · Apr 5, 2010

I want!!! Would put OS on this one...

yogurt_21 · Apr 5, 2010

as cool as this is it really feels like it's time to move over to ssd and stop trying to get the raptor to compete. I mean sure I have several raptors in my home rigs but that's when ssd's were 1k or more for 32-64gb, now you can get s 270read/250 write 128gb for 300$. for me that's plenty for a primary drive and then I'd raid several 2tb drives for storage.

stinger608 · Apr 5, 2010

It will be interesting to see what the price point will be with these drives.

Kreij · Apr 5, 2010

It wil be interesting to see how these stack up against SSDs in the upcoming reviews.

slyfox2151 · Apr 5, 2010

Woah.... 3 MS??? down from what 8.x somthing.

impressive if true

btarunr · Apr 5, 2010

It's the 3 ms access-time that's most exciting. I would expect the 600 GB model to sell around the $170 mark.

Kreij · Apr 5, 2010

A pair of SSDs in RAID0 for OS and a pair of these in RAID0 for much gaming goodness :rockout:

Mussels · Apr 5, 2010

i have to agree, this is quite a leap in access times for a mechanical drive.

I'm rather interested in one now, and i've been rather meh on raptors for a long time.

ACEkombatkiwi · Apr 5, 2010

According to the source web page it is going to have the SATA 3 6GB interface, something i am hoping all new HD's incorporate in the future

Mussels · Apr 5, 2010

ACEkombatkiwi said:
According to the source web page it is going to have the SATA 3 6GB interface, something i am hoping all new HD's incorporate in the future

its pointless even if it does have it, since these are barely sustaining full sata 1 speeds (150MB/s).

theubersmurf · Apr 5, 2010

With the number of rewrites on the platters up by comparison to ssd's, and probable price difference...This may be better than an SSD for many.

erixx · Apr 5, 2010

I am using a Barracuda of 500 Gb for windows and it's my lowest windows performance score (5.3), all my other parts being 7 and higher... so i'm seriously in the market. Still have to do my homework on SSD but this looks like the ultimate HDD....

Delta6326 · Apr 5, 2010

what would that 150gb sell for that would be perfect size for my os and couple games then i can move my 500gb for storage

newtekie1 · Apr 5, 2010

slyfox2151 said:
Woah.... 3 MS??? down from what 8.x somthing.

impressive if true

WD claims the Access time on the current 300GB VelociRaptor is 4.2ms, but they already claim Average Latency is 3ms, so who knows what numbers they are using in this press release for the new Raptor, but either way I don't think it is really a big leap.

yogurt_21 said:
as cool as this is it really feels like it's time to move over to ssd and stop trying to get the raptor to compete. I mean sure I have several raptors in my home rigs but that's when ssd's were 1k or more for 32-64gb, now you can get s 270read/250 write 128gb for 300$. for me that's plenty for a primary drive and then I'd raid several 2tb drives for storage.

Yes, but with the 600GB Raptor being 1/2 of that price, and the 150GB likely being less than 1/4, the raptors still look very appealing to many. IMO, it is a very good balance of speed, compacity, and price.

Lionheart · Apr 5, 2010

Several of those 600gig drives would be good in a RAID 0 config :toast:

Perra · Apr 5, 2010

Gonna be interesting to see how they compare to the old raptors, I switched from 150GB Raptor to 300GB Velociraptor... maybe it's time to switch again. I'd really want an ssd but theyre still bloody expensive.

ACEkombatkiwi · Apr 5, 2010

Mussels said:
its pointless even if it does have it, since these are barely sustaining full sata 1 speeds (150MB/s).

True i should have said for raid array's and being able to achieve higher than 300MB/s speeds

Mussels · Apr 5, 2010

ACEkombatkiwi said:
True i should have said for raid array's and being able to achieve higher than 300MB/s speeds

heh, that again. you'd be surprised how many people make that mistake.

when you RAID two drives, you're RAIDing two sata ports.
You arent running the two drives off the one port, they get 150MB/s each!

GSquadron · Apr 5, 2010

I think it is time the hdd gets trashed, as soon as ssd is cheap enough to buy...
Let's say 500GB ssd for 100$ that would be amazing! In 2 or 3 years maybe...

devguy · Apr 5, 2010

Mussels said:
heh, that again. you'd be surprised how many people make that mistake.

when you RAID two drives, you're RAIDing two sata ports.
You arent running the two drives off the one port, they get 150MB/s each!

Heh, remember the old days of having a motherboard, hard disk drive, and cable that supported ATA/133, and then stupidly putting an IDE (slow) DVD rom drive in the slave position to choke up some bandwidth when the two were both doing stuff? :nutkick:

A lot of my old motherboards did have two ATA ports on them, but some only had one and that dilemma would occur.

Mussels · Apr 5, 2010

devguy said:
Heh, remember the old days of having a motherboard, hard disk drive, and cable that supported ATA/133, and then stupidly putting an IDE (slow) DVD rom drive in the slave position to choke up some bandwidth when the two were both doing stuff?

true, but they were on the same cable/port on the mobo.

Delta6326 · Apr 5, 2010

are we talking like $70 for 150gb or will it cost more?

GSquadron · Apr 5, 2010

Why did they produce it with sata III and not Sata I or II if it does not utilizes the whole bandwidth???

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New WD VelociRaptor HDD to Take HDD Closest to SSD

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