Western Digital VelociRaptor Hard Drive Reaches New Performance Peak with 1 TB Model

[Cristian_25H]

Western Digital today announced it is now shipping the new WD VelociRaptor 1 TB hard drive, the latest addition to its award-winning drive family, the largest capacity 10,000 RPM hard drive on the market today. Designed for high-performance PCs, Mac computers and professional workstations that require a balance of high performance and capacity, the WD VelociRaptor drive is a favorite among enthusiasts and creative professionals. The WD VelociRaptor will also come in capacities of 500 GB and 250 GB.

Leveraging enterprise-class mechanics to provide 24x7 durability under high-performance workloads, the new WD VelociRaptor 1 TB hard drive is geared for creative professionals who demand the ultimate SATA drive. Creative pros use write-intensive applications that manage large, dynamic files; for example, video editing and digital content creation and management, which ultimately put a strain on storage devices that utilize write-challenged NAND memory for performance enhancement. WD VelociRaptor's outstanding read and write performance across the entire disk capacity makes it a perfect match for the creative professional and enthusiast who want to optimize their tools, enhance productivity, and increase storage space at the same time.





"WD is committed to providing customers with the best performing and most reliable SATA hard drives and our WD VelociRaptor family of drives underscores that promise," said Darwin Kauffman, vice president and general manager of WD's enterprise storage. "With ever-increasing demand for greater capacity, the new 1 TB WD VelociRaptor drive delivers the ultimate combination of speed and storage for the power user."

The WD VelociRaptor 2.5-inch hard drive comes in the IcePack enclosure, a 3.5-inch mounting frame with built-in heat sink - a factory customization that fits the drive into a standard 3.5-inch system bay and keeps the powerful drive extra cool when installed in a high-performance desktop or workstation system.

Features of the WD VelociRaptor hard drives include:

Super speed - SATA 6 Gb/s interface and 64 MB cache optimize the 10,000 RPM WD VelociRaptor.

Higher capacity - WD VelociRaptor SATA hard drives employ Advanced Format Technology to achieve capacities up to 1 TB.

Rock-solid reliability - Designed and manufactured to workstation standards to deliver stellar reliability in high workload environments.

Ultra-cool operation - Consumes less idle power and uses similar active power as the previous generation WD VelociRaptor while offering greater capacity and performance.

Rotary Acceleration Feed Forward (RAFF) - Optimizes operation and performance when the drives are used in vibration-prone, multi-drive chassis.

NoTouch ramp load technology - The recording head never touches the disk media ensuring significantly less wear to the recording head and media as well as better drive protection when in transit.

Environmentally conscious - In addition to being RoHS-compliant, this generation of WD VelociRaptor is also a halogen-free design.

Price and Availability

WD VelociRaptor hard drives are available now at select distributors, resellers and e-tailers, and come with a five-year limited warranty. Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) for the WD VelociRaptor 1 TB (model #: WD1000DHTZ) is $319.99 USD, the 500 GB version (model #: WD5000HHTZ) is $209.99 USD and the 250 GB version (model #: WD2500HHTZ) is $159.99 USD. More information about WD VelociRaptor hard drives including terms of the limited warranty may be found on the company website at http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=20.

[BigMack70]

Cool... but you could get a decent 1 TB hard drive (~$100) + up to a 240 GB SSD (if you get a good sale price on a 200-250 gig model) for very close to the same price as the 1 TB velociraptor, and you'd get much better performance + slightly more storage.

The part of me that still loves my 8 year old 74 gig WD Raptor that's still going strong loves this new model, but system builder in me says that SSDs make Raptors obsolete.

[stinger608]

I was wondering if WD was ever going to make one of these larger than 640gb. Of course like all the others they are over priced by a large margin.

[Kreij]

There is a review up an Anand's that shows this drive to be a great performer (when compared to other mechanical drives).
I wonder, though, if a pair of good less expensive 1TB drives in RAID0 would give you the same performance. The cost of a pair could be less than a single VR.

[wiak]

wreel now i have to scrap my m4 128GB and get a velcoiraptor :O





lol just kidding

[neko77025]

Originally Posted by Kreij

There is a review up an Anand's that shows this drive to be a great performer (when compared to other mechanical drives).
I wonder, though, if a pair of good less expensive 1TB drives in RAID0 would give you the same performance. The cost of a pair could be less than a single VR.

yea, I think you nailed it. A raid set up would save you money and be as fast if not faster.

[FreedomEclipse]

If I can get around 120Mb/s transfer rate on my 6GB/s 1.5TB FAEX's when its plugged into 6GB/s sata port, i wonder how much faster this raptor would be.

[repman244]

NoTouch ramp load technology - The recording head never touches the disk media ensuring significantly less wear to the recording head and media as well as better drive protection when in transit.

Hold on a second here, since when is the recording head in contact with the platter AFAIK the rotation of the platter provides an air cushion for the head and it's never in contact with it.

[Kreij]

Some older drives parked the heads on the platter after they spun down, but I thought that was old tech and not used for years.

[ZoneDymo]

Originally Posted by neko77025

yea, I think you nailed it. A raid set up would save you money and be as fast if not faster.

Sure but a pair of these raptors in Raid 0 would be faster then that again

[repman244]

Originally Posted by Kreij

Some older drives parked the heads on the platter after they spun down, but I thought that was old tech and not used for years.

Are you really sure about that?
Because I know that if the head touches the plate the area is damaged, that's the reason why a HDD can die (or it gets massive damage) if the power is lost during it's operation.

[Kreij]

Originally Posted by ZoneDymo

Sure but a pair of these raptors in Raid 0 would be faster then that again

True, but the cost would be about $650

@repman : Yes, they used to have a "parking track" on the platter where no data was written to drop the heads on.
Didn't do wonders for the life span of the r/w heads though.
After that, they made the actuator arms retract off the platters and added power loss curcuitry so that the heads would retract instantly if a power loss was detected before the heads could touch down and cause disaster.
Sounds to me like WD is just stating common tech as a feature, unless they are doing something completely new in that regard.

[LAN_deRf_HA]

Techreport's review is up. Seems they raised the performance yet again by throwing noise concerns out the window. Ever since they intro'd sata 6 drives WD has been all about making a racket.

[LagunaX]

They should comparo this vs. OCZ's hybrid 1TB revodrive.

[FreedomEclipse]

Originally Posted by LagunaX

They should comparo this vs. OCZ's hybrid 1TB revodrive.

revodrive would win hands down

[Steevo]

Originally Posted by Kreij

There is a review up an Anand's that shows this drive to be a great performer (when compared to other mechanical drives).
I wonder, though, if a pair of good less expensive 1TB drives in RAID0 would give you the same performance. The cost of a pair could be less than a single VR.

No, your seek time will still be crap.


But short stroke those 1TB drives in RAID and you will be damn close.

I like my arrays, RAID 0 of SSD that reaches almost 800MBps with .1 or less seek time

6TB of RAID 0 on two "green" 7200 drives that runs around 200MBps for the real storage.

[Delta6326]

would be sweet if price for 10k would go down then we can have SSD's as OS/Games and use 10K for everything else and say bye bye to 7.2k drives

[RejZoR]

1TB Velociraptor. Now we're talking. I have its older and bigger brother Caviar Black 2TB and man this thing is fast. And big in capacity. Sticking 2 1TB Velociraptors in RAID makes a lot of sense now.
Below the 1TB, they just weren't that interesting.

[Prima.Vera]

Velociraptors have 2 BIG advantages: They are top HDD technology, having the biggest reliability of ALL consumer storage media; some user have those for almost 10 years and still kicking. The other ones is that, compared to SSD, it will NOT diminish its performance over time...

[EpicShweetness]

These HDD's are still in a weird limbo in my opinion. On one hand there not as fast as an SSD but faster then a 7200RPM drive (duh!), they have more storage for the price then an SSD but again not as much as a spindle drive. I can honestly not think of a placement for these! Yes there reliable I have a 74GB in the old machine in my bedroom and its like 8 years old! And yes you have increase in performance (over other "reliable" spindle drives) but the only play I could see this coming in is large sequential reads like when ya boot windows or you have to load a game etc, but even that has its fault RAHH!

[FreedomEclipse]

Originally Posted by EpicShweetness

These HDD's are still in a weird limbo in my opinion. On one hand there not as fast as an SSD but faster then a 7200RPM drive (duh!), they have more storage for the price then an SSD but again not as much as a spindle drive. I can honestly not think of a placement for these! Yes there reliable I have a 74GB in the old machine in my bedroom and its like 8 years old! And yes you have increase in performance (over other "reliable" spindle drives) but the only play I could see this coming in is large sequential reads like when ya boot windows or you have to load a game etc, but even that has its fault RAHH!

if you check techreports review. the read speed of the velociraptor is actually as fast as an SSDs, which is quite amazing seeing as hard drives are seen as one of the things most likely to bottleneck a system.

[Morgoth]

i prefer a 120 ssd pci-E

[AthlonX2]

Velociraptor all the way. WTF you gonna do with a 120 SSD? before you know it its half full and crawling like a spinner

[neko77025]

Sorry, these are pointless. Like said before by others, take 2x 7200 500gb and raid them. If you need a fast 1gb drive for storage.. will save you alot of money.

Now days you should Have OS and (everyday games) on SSD and old school HDs for Storage/porn/VMs.

This is HANDS DOWN the best deal on A GREAT SSD Mushkin Enhanced Chronos MKNSSDCR120GB 2.5" 120GB ...
120GBs 500MB read & write for $120.00

Throw in 2x w/ Raid 0 Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Ca...

You now have +100% more Storage and 250% more (total) speed @ the same cost!

(Total) = 7,200 RPM x2 = 14,400 RPM - 10k RMP = +4k RMP for Storage/porn/Other. If you were too take the V.raptor Vs the Mushkin SSD .. well dont .. it does not have a chance in hell.

BTW here is my Mushkin 120gb SSD ATTO benchmark from two nights ago after fresh reinstall of 7.

[newtekie1]

Originally Posted by neko77025

yea, I think you nailed it. A raid set up would save you money and be as fast if not faster.

Yes, but you aren't likely going to get the sub-7ms latency of the raptor doing that.