Western Digital launches world's fastest SATA disk: the 300GB VelociRaptor

Overclockers and gamers, prepare to meet your next hard drive: the 300GB VelociRaptor from Western Digital. Said to be 35% faster than previous WD Raptors, the 10,000 RPM drive features a 3Gbps SATA interface, 16MB cache, and impressive 1.4 million hour MTBF thanks in part to the IcePack Mounting Frame. The IcePack heat sink not only keeps the drive spinning extra cool, it also bumps the 2.5-inch HDD to a required 3.5-inch drive bay. Available exclusively on Alienware's ALX gaming desktop this month and then up for grabs for everybody with $300 to burn starting mid-May.

Here come the benchmarks. It's freaky fast -- even holds up well to SSDs at a far better dollar-per-byte ratio according to MaximumPC.

Read -- Tom's Hardware
Read -- MaximumPC
Read -- PCPer
Read -- HotHardware
Read -- The Tech Report

[Mark @ Apr 21st 2008 8:43AM]

no

[Jon Doe. @ Apr 21st 2008 9:18AM]

Yes.

[Moonbright @ Apr 21st 2008 9:24AM]

I consider that's a cool harddisk than ever before~

[Esat Dedezade @ Apr 21st 2008 9:44AM]

Maybe?

[SpoonDogSVT @ Apr 21st 2008 10:12AM]

Reply hazy, try again?

[James Cameron @ Apr 21st 2008 12:52PM]

Wow RaptorX. What a POS and I can't believe I bought it for $200 and most other 7200rpm is kicking the crap out of it.

[AutoTom @ Apr 21st 2008 8:27PM]

Affirmative mark, tango is a negaitve, do not want

[Skorpius @ Apr 21st 2008 8:44AM]

When speccing out some existing Raptors, I was surprised to see that there was little speed benefit compared to a regular high capacity WD drive, so this is welcome news.

[Frankenstein Black @ Apr 21st 2008 1:14PM]

Agreed! The HDD is the weakest link in my most used Rig **inserts scarcism** on that oooh so coveted MS Vista 64bit system scoring. Soon as this thing hits the NewEgg, SOLD AMERICAN!!

[Kamokazi @ Apr 21st 2008 11:36PM]

But when Raptors came out, this was not the case. The high-density platters spinning at a lower speed can read the same amount of data now. The line was overdue for an upgrade.

When I bought my 74gb raptor 4 years (or was it 5?) ago, I didn't pay too much more than what they cost now. Those years of short load times have been well worth the premium.

I've been using a 500GB drive for a while now in my gaming PC for my least played games....but it's getting harder and harder to stick with only 74GB, (esepcially the fricking steam games sticking to the steam folder) and I'd really like to get it dual-booting Vista for when I actually need it. I think this will be a nice upgrade, but I'll wait a few months after general availability to let the price settle a bit.

[alias_ @ Apr 21st 2008 8:47AM]

:o

[CamryFan @ Apr 21st 2008 8:50AM]

All I can say is...

The King is Back!

[alias_ @ Apr 21st 2008 8:50AM]

but not as fast as my Cheetah's running at 15,000 RPM 300 GB at 300 Gbps

[Jon Doe. @ Apr 21st 2008 9:23AM]

Yah and about half the dang price....Which BTW doesn't include the $300-$500 or so you need to drop on the SCSI 3 card...No one cares about SCSI other then those who have deficiencies in other areas and need to compensate with bigger.....hardware.

[E71 @ Apr 21st 2008 6:10PM]

John Doe, obviously you've never had a Seagate Cheetah otherwise you'd be raving about it too.

[Rayan @ Apr 21st 2008 8:55AM]

Great!!!!!!

WD Keep 'em coming

[Bellerophon @ Apr 21st 2008 8:56AM]

What about noise?

Previous Raptors have been pretty noisy. Great for servers, annoying for those who want a quiet system.

[Che @ Apr 21st 2008 11:09AM]

2.5" drives are generally fairly quiet. On the other hand, they don't generally spin at 10,000 RPM, so this one might be louder.

[Dani @ Apr 21st 2008 12:27PM]

Accodring to the WD data sheet, they state 29 dB(A) in idle and 36 dB(A) when the drive constantly seeks data.

The Toms Hardware review linked in the article is quite thorough :)

[RyanTV @ Apr 21st 2008 8:59AM]

very nice... I'd love to know how much noise they produce.

[Floyd @ Apr 22nd 2008 5:49AM]

Why don't you just hit up the read link and find out how much noise they make? lazy mofos....

[james @ Apr 21st 2008 8:59AM]

It's crazy how I look at money these days. $300 bucks for a drive of this speed is REALLY tempting. But I'm still a penny pincher when it comes to other hardware and gadgets.

[FrankTheCrank @ Apr 21st 2008 9:00AM]

Wow...that's pretty friggin sweet.

Now I can replace my old 36GB Raptor that I use for a system drive.

It's so time to build a new PC.

[Arttemis @ Apr 21st 2008 10:53AM]

I'm in the same boat with the same thoughts exactly.

[Chebwa @ Apr 21st 2008 11:22AM]

A new PC because of a new SATA drive...?

o_O

How about throwing some of that money my way, MR. TRUMP.

[Ihar `Philips` Filipau @ Apr 21st 2008 9:02AM]

Question is: how loud it is?

I know it is absurd, but I have bought my last two hard drives based solely on how silent they run.

Having worked in same room with RAID array, I learned hard way that blazing performance isn't only metric for hard drives. Even more so for PCs in living rooms.

[The Future @ Apr 21st 2008 9:05AM]

You just made our day


WOW!!!!!

of course, by next year this time, this will be mainstream

[Albert Siegel @ Apr 21st 2008 9:08AM]

Does it make bacon any faster?

[Geoffrey Sperl @ Apr 21st 2008 9:30AM]

Just wait till George Foreman gets his hands on it and it will...

[pfromg @ Apr 21st 2008 9:16AM]

does it fit in a Mac Pro?
The ice pack seams like it might not fit everywhere you might want it to.

[Jonny @ Apr 21st 2008 9:32AM]

Looking at the non standard positioning of the SATA ports, no, it wont work in a Mac Pro.

[Ksilebo @ Apr 21st 2008 10:45AM]

Looks like its a 5.25" setup for desktops and not intended for fitting into a standard SATA hotswap bay.

[Tom @ Apr 21st 2008 12:38PM]

Nope, won't fit in a Mac Pro, or the HP Blackbird, or quite a few NAS devices, or anything that depends on the drive manufacturer adhering to standards. Well, it will fit in the optical drive area as there are two spare SATA ports on the Mac Pros, but that loses half the point of having a nice 4 drive backplane solution.

SATA was nice in that it was supposed to mandate things like connector location and screw holes to ensure drives could be hot pluggable in anyones carriers similar to SCA for SCSI drives.

I was all excited too, I have a Mac Pro coming soon, and was hoping for an updated Raptor drive. Oh well.

[sam @ Apr 21st 2008 9:45AM]

more reviews for you to add to the list:

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/the_new_fastest_hard_drive_ever
http://www.storagereview.com/WD3000BLFS.sr?page=0%2C0

[huh @ Apr 21st 2008 10:06AM]

ahh, good old storage review. Years later and it still stands head and shoulders above the pack in intelligence. If you're making reviews, why not make them consistent, so you can compare every model, even years later? and the insight is professional. they reveal that the "icepak" is more to make the 2.5" drive fit in a 3.5" case, of course a site like Engadget is going to fall for the "spin" of it being a super hot drive.

[huh @ Apr 21st 2008 10:17AM]

By this I mean
http://www.storagereview.com/WD3000BLFS.sr?page=0%2C5

"the IcePAK, as pretty as it may be to some enthusiast eyes, is unnecessary with a drive that dissipates so little heat."

Storage review also has a reliability index, where they track user issues over years to determine model and vendor reliability. Just really smart compared to the average "look at the pretty box!" review.

Looks like a very good drive btw, very low noise and power usage and excellent performance across the board.

[sam @ Apr 21st 2008 9:47AM]

official page for the new drive: http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=459

[erislover @ Apr 21st 2008 9:50AM]

Someone notify xkcd, some calculations need to be adjusted.

http://xkcd.com/135/

[BustaCap @ Apr 21st 2008 10:07AM]

For those asking how noisy it is, from the Storagereview.com review:

"Its noise and power measurements are among the lowest we have ever recorded. "

[kal326 @ Apr 21st 2008 10:15AM]

Wonder where I can find a 4 drive 5.25" hot swap cage and about $1200 extra dollars?

[André @ Apr 22nd 2008 8:15AM]

Thanks to the ingenious design it will not fit any professionally designed workstations with hot swappable cages. Nice.

At least we still have better and faster SAS drives available.

[Laughing Man @ Apr 21st 2008 10:17AM]

Wow, we are getting to the point where heating is a hard drive issue now? Did I miss something? My current Western Digital HDD has never run any higher or lower than 28 degrees C. A cooling brick?

Ok, I am just mad that Alienware gets it first. I guess you have to test hardware somehow.

P.S. Someone contact erislover and notify him that his web comics HAVE TOO MANY WORDS TO BE FUNNY!

[ned flanders @ Apr 21st 2008 10:25AM]

so can i put this in my laptop then?

[Tom @ Apr 21st 2008 10:35AM]

Perhaps in a 1993 Thinkpad, at risk of personal injury or catastrophic loss of person.

[Forrest @ Apr 21st 2008 10:52AM]

I was hoping the same thing - I'm getting a new Precision any day now and was hoping to slap one of these into it. I found another forum that said the form factor doesn't fit standard laptops, though.

I don't know much about the intricacies of hardware, but apparently 2.5" drives come in several different heights. From an article on Tom's Hardware:

"Although the VelociRaptor is a 2.5" hard drive, it does not fit into notebooks due to its greater height. Notebook hard drives typically stick to a 9.5 mm height; some high-capacity models (the current 500 GB notebook drives) utilize three platters and hence occupy a 12.5 mm height. The new Raptor, however, fits into the format for 2.5" enterprise hard drives, which allows for a total height of 15 mm."

Plus if the location of the SATA connection (on the drive itself) is non-standard... Oh well, I will have to live with my 7200 RPM drive I guess :\

[fred @ Apr 21st 2008 10:29AM]

damn!!!! that hdd is so fast that it eve has a heat sink on it.

[Richard Lai @ Apr 21st 2008 10:36AM]

I don't want that huge heatsink; I just want to dunk that damn thing into liquid nitrogen.

No, I lied, I just want to have liquid nitrogen so that I can make extra-smooth ice cream.

[Wifiguy @ Apr 21st 2008 4:03PM]

WTF?

[Richard Lai @ Apr 21st 2008 5:58PM]

Wifiguy: http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/001366.html

[Yamen @ Apr 21st 2008 10:39AM]

This is an ingenious idea, almost too good to be true.