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.

Western Digital (WD) is reportedly giving its flagship performance hard drive, the VelociRaptor a specifications update with a new 600 GB model. The new VelociRaptor HDD will succeed a four generations of Raptor HDDs from the company. It will implement developments in areal density to place 600 GB of data onto two platters, a two-fold increase over the previous generation. A single-platter 300 GB model also seems to be on cards. The drive will also feature improved electronics with a 'significantly' larger cache. It is also indicated that the 600 GB model will be priced on par with what the current-generation 300 GB VelociRaptor was upon release (~$250).

In this era of SSDs, Western Digital believes it can still compete with high-performance HDDs. The new VelociRaptor will strike the right balance between price, performance, and capacity. A $250 HDD with 600 GB capacity seems to be a good deal compared to a 250 GB SSD which can go for as much as ~$700. Past models in the Raptor family of HDDs have come with high spindle speeds backed by large caches to give out high read-write speeds and low access times compared to other HDDs.

German gaming peripherals and accessories specialist Raptor-Gaming is out with its newest gaming mouse, the M3x. This right-oriented mouse features 7 buttons including the scrollwheel, and provides high-precision pointing along with being able to tailor its weight to preference. The laser sensor resolution can be adjusted in a broad range between 400 and 4800 dpi, in steps of 400 dpi (400, 800, 1200,...). The soft tough surface ensures better grip. It comes with a 2 m long cable, with a gold-plated USB connector. The weight chamber underneath it allows five weight settings using additional weights of 6.5 g each. The unit's weight can be altered from 110 g to 140 g. Available for preorder, the M3x is priced at 70 EUR. Shipping starts later this month.

PC gaming peripherals specialist Raptor Gaming announced the Bioxar GM1 gaming mouse. With a fixed weight of 130 g, this mouse targets the mainstream segment with its relatively low cost, with its ambidextrous design. Its optical sensor allows controlling its sensitivity between 500, 1000, and 2000 dpi on the fly. It is otherwise simple with three buttons and a broadened, illuminated scroll-wheel. With these, the mouse looks to best suit FPS games. It is available in Europe, at a price of 29.99€.

Raptor-Gaming, a German-based gaming-oriented computer peripheral manufacturer, has announced the H2 5.1 headset, which should be available from next month. The headset comes with a 3 meter long cable, a noise canceling microphone, an amplifier, and features a frequency response of 20Hz ~ 20kHz. The package is completed with a carry pouch. The Raptor-Gaming H2 will be priced at 69.90 Euro.

Western Digital has released a new model of its fastest performing "prehistoric" VelociRaptor hard drives. The new backplane version is specifically designed for 3.5-inch drive-based servers, PC and Mac computer enthusiasts and professional workstations that require the need for a backplane structure. "We designed the latest version of the WD VelociRaptor due to the increasing amount of systems that require a backplane mounting system. We have had overwhelming demand of our WD VelociRaptor as it provides enthusiasts with the computing speed and capacity they thirst for," said Tom McDorman, vice president and general manager of WD's enterprise solutions storage business unit. "The new WD VelociRaptor further demonstrates WD's commitment to the enthusiast and server market by delivering the greatest performance, compatibility, and reliability of all SATA hard drives currently on the market." Except the backplane mounting system, the updated VelociRaptors remain the same in specs which include: the 2,5-inch hard drive itself, 300GB of space, 10,000 rpm, SATA 3 Gb/s interface, 16MB cache and 1.4 million hours MTBF. WD VelociRaptor model WD3000HLFS and WD1500HLFS are available through select resellers and distributors. Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) for the WD VelociRaptor 300GB and 150 GB are $319.00 and $229.00 respectively.

Sources close to bit-tech.net and the hard drive industry have revealed information that Western Digital is working on a 20,000 RPM Raptor hard drive to counter SSD drives. Just like the company's latest 10,000 RPM VelociRaptor (300GB, SATA 3Gb/s, 16MB Cache), the 20,000 RPM unit will come in a 2.5-inch form factor with custom 3.5-inch enclosure. Other details are still unknown, since the drive is still in development stage. No release date has been unveiled, too.