Western Digital's VelociRaptor VR150 hard drive review

jmke · 21st April 2008, 14:10

If PC enthusiasts had a hall of fame for hardware, Western Digital's Raptor hard drive would be a shoo-in. Storage-related products are usually a little short on sex appeal, but the Raptor has become an icon—a testament to what it means to be an enthusiast.

Like many enthusiast legends, the Raptor started with enterprise-class hardware designed for corporate server rooms. Western Digital, a plucky desktop drive maker with no background in SCSI hardware that dominated the enterprise scene at the time, came to bat with the world's first 10K-RPM Serial ATA hard drive. The original Raptor didn't usurp the enterprise crown from well-established SCSI players, but its performance blew away every other Serial ATA hard drive on the market. What's more, the Raptor plugged into standard desktop motherboards, delivering near-SCSI performance without the need for expensive expansion cards.

http://techreport.com/articles.x/14583

21st April 2008, 15:08

Very impressive! Best performance, good acoustics, and in a smaller form factor no less...

jmke · 21st April 2008, 15:19

the smaller form factor is partly cause of the higher performance

it's not really laptop 2.5" material due to thickness, but as uberfast system drive it will serve well if you have too much money.

if you look at the real world tests, the drive is at the top but other drives, 7200rpm are able to match it, and better it.

only in the synthetic benchmarks and pure file copy/paste tests does the drive stand apart; real world tests show less gain to be had.

overall, for the price, I would rather have more space, than few % better copy times, but to each his own

22nd April 2008, 00:06

7200RPM drives shouldn't be able to better it though, not when it offers higher sustained read/writes at the lowest access times. Probably because the firmware is not complete yet: http://www.anandtech.com/weblog/showpost.aspx?i=432

jmke · 22nd April 2008, 08:08

let's just hope it's a firmware issue

23rd April 2008, 07:34

i have a 36.7gig raptor (old S.O.B) and it get fragmented SOOOO easy and isn't noticably faster than my 250gb caviar SATA... anyone want my raptor?

21st April 2008, 14:10	#1
jmke Madshrimp Join Date: May 2002 Location: 7090/Belgium Posts: 79,021	Western Digital's VelociRaptor VR150 hard drive review If PC enthusiasts had a hall of fame for hardware, Western Digital's Raptor hard drive would be a shoo-in. Storage-related products are usually a little short on sex appeal, but the Raptor has become an icon—a testament to what it means to be an enthusiast. Like many enthusiast legends, the Raptor started with enterprise-class hardware designed for corporate server rooms. Western Digital, a plucky desktop drive maker with no background in SCSI hardware that dominated the enterprise scene at the time, came to bat with the world's first 10K-RPM Serial ATA hard drive. The original Raptor didn't usurp the enterprise crown from well-established SCSI players, but its performance blew away every other Serial ATA hard drive on the market. What's more, the Raptor plugged into standard desktop motherboards, delivering near-SCSI performance without the need for expensive expansion cards. http://techreport.com/articles.x/14583 __________________

21st April 2008, 15:19	#3
jmke Madshrimp Join Date: May 2002 Location: 7090/Belgium Posts: 79,021	the smaller form factor is partly cause of the higher performance it's not really laptop 2.5" material due to thickness, but as uberfast system drive it will serve well if you have too much money. if you look at the real world tests, the drive is at the top but other drives, 7200rpm are able to match it, and better it. only in the synthetic benchmarks and pure file copy/paste tests does the drive stand apart; real world tests show less gain to be had. overall, for the price, I would rather have more space, than few % better copy times, but to each his own __________________

22nd April 2008, 08:08	#5
jmke Madshrimp Join Date: May 2002 Location: 7090/Belgium Posts: 79,021	let's just hope it's a firmware issue __________________

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21st April 2008, 15:08	#2
Kougar Posts: n/a	Very impressive! Best performance, good acoustics, and in a smaller form factor no less...

22nd April 2008, 00:06	#4
Kougar Posts: n/a	7200RPM drives shouldn't be able to better it though, not when it offers higher sustained read/writes at the lowest access times. Probably because the firmware is not complete yet: http://www.anandtech.com/weblog/showpost.aspx?i=432

23rd April 2008, 07:34	#6
jakebot Posts: n/a	i have a 36.7gig raptor (old S.O.B) and it get fragmented SOOOO easy and isn't noticably faster than my 250gb caviar SATA... anyone want my raptor?