Thursday, January 7th 2010
Western Digital Readying 600 GB VelociRaptor HDD
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.
Source:
DailyTech
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.
46 Comments on Western Digital Readying 600 GB VelociRaptor HDD
Much better then both my old 160GB WD Caviar 7200 and Seagate Barracuda 7200 drives i had.
While it still will not saturate a SATA 3.0 link, I am sure it will come with SATA 6.0 connectors just to give it more data lanes. There is a lot they can improve here beyond just bumping up space from its previous brothers.
just an upgrade over my current 2.5" sata 7200 hitachi 80GB drive which has a single pattern and is fast.
i will look into it any imput appreciated as raptors are maybe to hot :-)
Regarding the comparation between this and an SSD, it's nonsense. For 1 quoter of its size you pay a fortune, and it lasts less than 2 years...lol
I would expect the 300GB model to be about half the price of the 300GB model to be competitive, maybe a little higher at the $150 range.
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136555&cm_re=velociraptor-_-22-136-555-_-Product
Read transfer rate
Transfer Rate Minimum : 80.1 MB/s
Transfer Rate Maximum : 145.6 MB/s
Transfer Rate Average : 121.1 MB/s
Access Time : 7.2 ms
Burst Rate : 260.5 MB/s
CPU Usage : -1.0%
If you want something "snappy" as well as something with high read/write speeds, SSD is of course the way to go. In the latency department, the VelociRaptor is bound to feel so much more like a normal HDD than an SSD that I wouldn't consider it worth the cost per GB over regular HDDs just for the latency. And for the read/write speeds, you can just use RAID at a much lower cost per GB.
One could argue that it's at a reasonable price point for where it lies performance-wise between HDDs and SSDs, but I think if you want high read/write speeds, you're better off with inexpensive HDDs in RAID, and if you need low latency, better go SSD rather than half-assing it with a VelociRaptor.
I was thing I would either RAID my current drive or replace it with the 300 GB VRaptor when it is released. RAID is currently in the lead, but I honestly have no experience. Tell me, can a single VRaptor 2 out perform 2x 1TB (2 platter) Sammy F3's in say RAID 0 or 1 in any performance catagory (Exception to RAID 1 writes, I already no that will be the same as it is now)?
SDD or HighPoint RocketRAID 640 ?
2 SSD drives in RAID 0 vs 2 Velociraptors in RAID 0 (including the external benchmarks link)