Amidst much anticipation, WD launched the next in-line of the 10,000 RPM SATA “raptor” series, VelociRaptor. The new hard drive is claimed to be 35 percent faster than the previous model and features a SATA 3GB/s interface and a blistering 1.4 million hour MTBF, without the Icepack cover the whole thing would go up in smoke in an hour. The new raptor is expected to ship in May with a price tag of $300, and it’s probably the fastest, coolest, 3.5” hard disk you can lay your hands on. The disk is actually 2.5” but the inbuilt Icepack frame is responsible for providing and easy compatibility with 3.5” bays. WD deserves kudos for taking up such a huge challenge and making the transition from 2.5” to 2.5” form. However, the transition is mainly on the enterprise segment where WD cannot expect to compete in terms of performance. The high performance hard drive segment is under the constant assault of Flash SSD’s and WD has done a fairly good job of keeping them at bay. Considering the maximum capacity of 300 GB and price of $300, it is fairly evident that sooner or later the Flash SSD is going to threaten the WD performance. However, these are expected to take palce only at 64 GB and 128 GB ranges.
Flash memory density is too weak to support higher capacity drives, as a result a high intensity 128GB flash drives will hover around the $1,000 mark for a while. The only weak link in the velociraptor is the inability to it into a pre-existing 3.5” bays. This is because the power connectors and the SATA of the VelociRaptor are not located in the conventional position. This makes seamless upgrades literally impossible. Prior to the VelociRaptor’s launch the title for the best hard disk was held by Samsung’s HD103UJ, it offered an unbeatable combo of scorching speeds and that too at a price-per-gigabyte ratio which would pale the Raptor in comparison. The VelociRaptor is able to achieve these insane rates of calculation mainly because of its reduced size. The dual platter VelociRaptor runs with the same 16 MB cache as its older siblings. The VelociRaptor’s interface has taken much needed improvement from SATA 1.5 Gb/s to a whopping 3 GB/s. Modders who are already thinking of ways to take apart the drive will have to wait. WD has made it clear that once the drive is removed from the Icepack casing the warranty becomes void. Moreover, it’s also pointless trying to tune a device which packs in so much power and the VelociRaptor’s power requirements renders it useless in a laptop. The VelociRaptor is touted to be 59 percent faster than its predecessor, the Raptor X and 18 percent faster than the Samsung HD 103UJ. The RAID performance of the VelociRaptor against its predecessor was also carried out and a RAID 0 VelociRaptor clocked PCMark 05 scores at almost 37 percent faster rates than a RAID 0 array of two Raptor drives.
Popularity: 21% [?]
Leave a Reply