Western Digital Readying 600 GB VelociRaptor HDD

[btarunr]

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.

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[Baum]

omg that would be real nice

but do they offer 2,5" inch harddrives with performance?
i need one for my laptop

 

[btarunr]

omg that would be real nice

but do they offer 2,5" inch harddrives with performance?
i need one for my laptop

VelociRaptor is a 2.5" HDD.

 

[t77snapshot]

It's about time WD made a higher capacity Velocirapter! 600GB on two platters should performe quit well and the price seems really good. Now all we need are some benchmarks and reviews

 

[Batou1986]

omg that would be real nice

but do they offer 2,5" inch harddrives with performance?
i need one for my laptop

VelociRaptor is a 2.5" HDD.

That would certainly cut you battery power time in half

I really don't see the point here the bigger the drive gets the slower its going to be
i just keep windows and my games on my 150gig raptor and put all the other A/V where speed isn't an issue stuff on a large drive.

 

[erocker]

DO WANT!!! Perfect for my games/apps. drive!

 

[TheLaughingMan]

This will be very nice replacement for my primary drive. I am looking forward to this release.

P.S. I still want my Rectangular HDDs.

 

[pantherx12]

I want a 1 terrabyte raptor X instead

 

[CDdude55]

Wow, very nice. Already love my 300GB Velociraptor tho.

 

[Polarman]

Same speed + More room for less $$ = Sounds good.

 

[[H]@RD5TUFF]

omg that would be real nice

but do they offer 2,5" inch harddrives with performance?
i need one for my laptop

They are 2.5, but require more power than your laptop can provide, as well as put out amazing amounts of heat, there is a reason they come in an ICE dock heatsink, it simply will not work, buy a SSD.


IMO WD would be better served by investing into SSD tech, they will keep getting cheaper and cheaper, and will always be faster than mechanical drives. Also there is little point of having a 600 gig drive, do you need all 50 games you own installed? Mechanical drives are still far from being obsolete, but honestly, they should have just made a single platter 300 GB raptor and cut the price to $150, rather than make new tech that really doesn't matter.

 

[niko084]

WD is not a "RAM" company, nor is Seagate... All they do is HDD's they need to build something to compete.

As for these drives, sounds like it might be my next upgrade in my DAW from my 1st Gen Raptor 150s.

They work great for live mixing and recording.

 

[newtekie1]

I really don't see the point here the bigger the drive gets the slower its going to be

Not true at all, larger areal dencities means faster read/write speeds. Larger drives might have higher latencies, I say might because I've never really checked, but they definitely have higher read/write speeds.

They are 2.5, but require more power than your laptop can provide, as well as put out amazing amounts of heat, there is a reason they come in an ICE dock heatsink, it simply will not work, buy a SSD.


IMO WD would be better served by investing into SSD tech, they will keep getting cheaper and cheaper, and will always be faster than mechanical drives. Also there is little point of having a 600 gig drive, do you need all 50 games you own installed? Mechanical drives are still far from being obsolete, but honestly, they should have just made a single platter 300 GB raptor and cut the price to $150, rather than make new tech that really doesn't matter.

While SSDs might continue to get cheaper, I don't see them getting as cheap as hard drives any time soon, and hard drive tech just keeps getting cheaper also(though at a slower rate). The raptors still offer a good middle ground between speed and price and size. Though I still prefer a huge 7200RPM drive...

 

[LagunaX]

Be a tough choice between this and the Western Digital 2TB Black...

 

[[H]@RD5TUFF]

WD is not a "RAM" company, nor is Seagate... All they do is HDD's they need to build something to compete.

As for these drives, sounds like it might be my next upgrade in my DAW from my 1st Gen Raptor 150s.

They work great for live mixing and recording.

Seagate showed a SSD @ CES and have made no secret that they are investing into SSD's. Where as WD seems to be quickly becoming irrelivent.

Not true at all, larger areal dencities means faster read/write speeds. Larger drives might have higher latencies, I say might because I've never really checked, but they definitely have higher read/write speeds.



While SSDs might continue to get cheaper, I don't see them getting as cheap as hard drives any time soon, and hard drive tech just keeps getting cheaper also(though at a slower rate). The raptors still offer a good middle ground between speed and price and size. Though I still prefer a huge 7200RPM drive...

I agree, however at the end of 2008 a 30 gig SSD was almost 700 dollars, now a 60 GB can be had for about $200-$250 USD, by the end of 2010, I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility to see 120 gigs for $200-$300 USD. I still firmly believe that WD should have simply made 1 platter 300 gig drives for around $150

 

[Weer]

DO WANT!!! Perfect for my games/apps. drive!

God, what a complete waste of money. You'll see another 1/2 frame and 2 second decrease in loading times.

I expected better from you.

Although, I do hope everyone here realized how completely worthless the VelociRaptors are, compared to SSD's.
This isn't even a price/capacity comparison - it's 4ms vs 0.2ms.

 

[WarEagleAU]

perfect and cheaper. Ill take two in raid!

 

[Weer]

perfect and cheaper. Ill take two in raid!

Okay, I'm not going to get into an argument here, hence my last post.

I will just convince myself that anyone who finds the Raptors interesting has never had an SSD.

 

[Kantastic]

Looks like I'll be upgrading soon! I could never justify paying $200 for 300GB, if I can get $250 (or less) for 600GB then I'm all over it, my Caviar Black can be used as a movie drive.

 

[RejZoR]

VelociRaptor is a 2.5" HDD.

It is 2,5", however notebook drives usually don't run off 12V, but they are 5V.
Velociraptor uses 12V. At least i was told before it wouldn't even work.

For performance HDD, currently almost nothing beats Seagate Momentus 7200.4 16MB cache and can even compete with some desktop drives.

 

[Wile E]

That would certainly cut you battery power time in half

I really don't see the point here the bigger the drive gets the slower its going to be
i just keep windows and my games on my 150gig raptor and put all the other A/V where speed isn't an issue stuff on a large drive.

No, that's not true at all. It depends on how the capacity was raised. If the increase in capacity is due to an increase in platter density, the speed increases with size. This 600GB VR will rape the current 150GB and 300GB VRs. What I'm more interested in tho, is the single platter 300GB model they plan on.

Okay, I'm not going to get into an argument here, hence my last post.

I will just convince myself that anyone who finds the Raptors interesting has never had an SSD.

The VelociRaptor has a much better price per GB than SSD, while still being faster than a 7200rpm drive. If I pay $250 for a drive, I better damn well get more than 64GB of storage.

 

[RejZoR]

Makes me wonder if WD will use dual actuator system as they used it in 2TB Caviar Black series.
This should bring up the bandwidth and bring down the latency...

 

[Deleted member 3]

the bigger the drive gets the slower its going to be

How does this logic work? If size is attained by increasing the density more data passes the heads per rotation thus increasing performance. The extra platter won't slow it down as far as I know as nothing else changes.

 

[Mussels]

How does this logic work? If size is attained by increasing the density more data passes the heads per rotation thus increasing performance. The extra platter won't slow it down as far as I know as nothing else changes.

exactly... the bigger they get (Storage wise) the faster they get... its always been that way, and always will be

 

[newtekie1]

I agree, however at the end of 2008 a 30 gig SSD was almost 700 dollars, now a 60 GB can be had for about $200-$250 USD, by the end of 2010, I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility to see 120 gigs for $200-$300 USD. I still firmly believe that WD should have simply made 1 platter 300 gig drives for around $150

That is true, but cost doesn't go down in a linear fashion. In fact newegg just had a 30GB SSD for $65 yesterday as their shell shocker. However, the price per GB is still horrible. By the end of the year we might see consistant $2 per GB on SSDs, but it won't come close to the $0.50 we already see for this drive, and the $0.10 we see for standard drives.

God, what a complete waste of money. You'll see another 1/2 frame and 2 second decrease in loading times.

I expected better from you.

Although, I do hope everyone here realized how completely worthless the VelociRaptors are, compared to SSD's.
This isn't even a price/capacity comparison - it's 4ms vs 0.2ms.

Okay, I'm not going to get into an argument here, hence my last post.

I will just convince myself that anyone who finds the Raptors interesting has never had an SSD.

I've owned several SSDs, and Raptors over the years, and I still primarily use 7200RPM drives. I even recently have started using 5900/5400RPM drives as the primary drive in certainly situations. The speed difference isn't noticeable. You are talking about going from 8ms to 4ms to 0.2ms, and in the end I might shave 2 seconds off loading a game, and maybe 10 seconds off booting the OS...