While it's only a matter of time before
solid state storage becomes cheap and reliable enough to replace magnetic media for good, companies like
Western Digital are
still finding ways to keep those platters a' spinning. Take this new WD VelociRaptor VR200M, for instance. Critics agree that while it doesn't offer anywhere near SSD levels of performance, it's certainly the fastest rotational SATA drive ever tested -- 15 to 30 percent improved over the last generation of
VelociRaptors, depending on the benchmark -- and at roughly 50 cents per gigabyte for the three-platter, 600GB WD6000BLHX ($329), it offers more capacity than any SSD you could hope to buy without refinancing your third vacation home. Reviewers note that
with a 15mm drive height, you still won't be dropping one of these speed demons in your new laptop, and your desktop might be better off with a cheaper 7200RPM drive paired with a similarly inexpensive SSD, but if you're looking for that single drive that does it all, the new VelociRaptor is your best bet. Hit the links below for the full skinny, and a deep, deep dive into the fascinating world of IOPS, read speeds and write times.
Read - TechReport
Read - AnandTech
Read - PC Perspective
Read - HotHardware
Read - Tom's Hardware
Read - ExtremeTech
Read - LegitReviews
Read - StorageReview
Read - DesktopReview
posted April 6th 2010 9:02PM
I think two 640 blacks in raid make a far more compelling bargain. Slower seeks, but higher throughput. To be fair, this is probably the most highly evolved mechanical raptor we will ever see. Perhaps they will evolve into birdSSD's?
@Nitesh Agreed.
@Nitesh
I think you mean butterSSDs.
@Lando Calrissian
No, raptors didn't evolve into butter. They evolved into birds.
@Nitesh
And 100 x 20GB IDE Drives would probably beat it too. But that's not the point. It's still the fastest single mechanical-based solution on the desktop market. It may not be the most economical, but those who buy it will be looking for a good balance between pure speed, and capacity. RAID isn't an option for everyone.
Besides, two of these in RAID0 would tear it up - cost aside.
If I had the money, I would happily have one of these 600GB babies sit alongside my SSD boot array.
@Nitesh
Coming from two 640GB Caviar Blue drives in RAID 0, I totally agree with you. Based on the HDTune benchmarks on techreport.com and my own benchmarks, my $140 drive setup still gets much higher throughput, albeit slightly slower access times.
@Nitesh
Hate to be the one to naysay but I just wanted to put this out there -- using desktop class drives in a RAID is a bad idea. You're asking for nothing but trouble, especially with parity RAID. The main difference is that desktop class drives have a _very_high_ tollerance for command timeouts (ie. drive too busy to respond) where as enterprise class (or RAID class) drives -- don't.
"durr... its not as fast as SSD" *picks nose*
"durr... it doesn't fit in a laptop" *scratches ass*
way to miss the point about who WD is targeting here - ENTERPRISE STORAGE. see the big yellow sticker? read the whitepaper? SSD's aren't there yet for 24x7 crunchtime in a server. you can't even RAID SSD's yet due to TRIM issues (get it) not unlike a lot of the nerds posting here.
See you at the iPad roundup roundup in 3...2...
@Mister Warmth
duhh, like starship enterprise? *picks nose*
@higherdestiny I think you are like 2 or 3 years behind. MLC has caught up quite nicely for server use. For example Intel SSD drives are certified for in use in servers and with the latest intel chipset raid driver release even add TRIM support in RAID 0/1/10 (adaptec and others will follow soon) ... the X-25m-G2 has a 3 year warranty and a MTBF of 1.2 million hours (this VelociRaptor has 1.4million ... only a tiny bit better). If you are really after speed then go with SSD ... if you are after space then use platter based drives. VelociRaptors offer a mix somewhere in between (space vs speed vs price) but i don't think companies buying them make a wise decision.
mhhhhh so capacious it is you say? but no ssd ! mhhh!
the dark side i sense
@Master Yoda you sir, are a winner
@The Geek mhhhh, mhhhh midi-chlorians in you let you speak wise young padawan, but much to learn, still you have also.
@Master Yoda can you buy me an ssd? I'll be forever grateful.
i want to play lego with my hard disks
"While it's only a matter of time before solid state storage becomes cheap and reliable enough to replace magnetic media for good."
This has already happened when it comes to performance boot drives. Quality SSDs are simply better. Disk drives are good for storage, and hyper performance isn't necessary for that.
@Ducman69
SSDs are a no-brainer for boot drives, and that's because, for most people, there's a certain size that is "enough" for a boot drive to hold their OS and apps, and any capacity beyond that is wasted. Yes it creeps up over time, but relatively slowly.
However, when you're talking about a bulk storage drive, where you would be storing your home directories, video files, etc., there is never enough, and so far magnetic platter technology doesn't seem to be having any trouble staying orders of magnitude ahead of SSDs. At some point mechanical drives may hit a wall, but it's not like silicon has limitless potential these days either. It will be interesting to see what things look like 5 years from now.
$330?
For that price you could buy an 80GB SSD and a 1.5TB hard drive.
Do they seriously think these will sell (is anyone stupid enough to buy)?
@YuriTenshi
well... almost half a million americans just spent hundreds on iFails... i think theres plenty of market out there for overpriced products..
@YuriTenshi
This highest performing magnetic disk drive ever made. If you don't know why someone would want that, you obviously don't know a lot about throughput optimization and server storage.
@YuriTenshi Only if this gets as much publicity as the iPad, heh. But yes, considering the falling prices of nice small and silent SSDs w/ TRIM support and large storage drives, this makes a whole lot of nonsense.
Finally! We've been using the 300GB versions in a bunch of servers and we are happy with the price/performance ratio but 300GB isn't nearly big enough. We just bought a ton of servers with SAS backplanes so we could use the Seagate Cheetah 600GB 15K drives, which are very veryt nice, but at $600 each, a bit spendy. The Cheetah's are probably faster but we haven't noticed a huge increase in speed from them, so they're definitely not worth twice the price of these new VR's. Well done Western Digital :)
Time has passed this sort of thing by I think. Sure if you're running a big database server or something, this is much faster than other big rotating drives, but if you're running something like that you really should be using an SSD shouldn't you?
If you're a consumer and you have a Desktop system with two drive bays the best choice for you is going to be an SSD boot drive and a large rotating media drive, say one of the many cheap 2TB drives out there.
I think this is cool and all, but for exactly who is this designed?
@Fanfoot
Enterprise hasn't embraced SSD's and won't for quite some time I think. They need the large capacity, first of all (especially for the kind of database server you suggest). Secondly, while it's not a very big problem on the consumer front, Enterprise quickly starts banging up against the limited number of writes that SSD's are capable of. That dramatically decreases disk life over magnetic medium and makes the hilariously higher cost per gig even harder to stomach.
There's a reason for that yellow stick on the top of this baby. VR's aren't really for enthusiast gamers anymore. That sector is solidly in the hands of SSDs.
@Fanfoot
What Delta said. SSD is nowhere near ready for enterprise needs.
@Fanfoot SLC drives are enterprise-friendly, but their cost is massive. They make the typical consumer MLC drive (even the high-end SandForce/RealSSD) look like a real bargain.
Also, another reason that raptors aren't that good for consumers - the whine that results from running such a high-speed drive.
Ever since I replace my raptor wth SSD, I've never look back (execption is for hdd storage). Upgrading SSD beat upgrading CPU... Well I got an over clock q9550 @3.6 so upgrading ti i7 without ssd will not affect my computer performance as much as just upgrading to ssd. I think you guy better off getting an ssd for a main drive rather than this.
Do you seriously think that harddrives are a magnetic media O.o....?!
@substance90
Yes, hard drives are magnetic storage. They consist of spinning platters covered with a ferromagnetic substance (usually iron oxide). The polarity of the individual its is modified/read by one of the heads and is processed by the on-board disk controller who then interfaces with the storage bus (in this case SATA).
@Ericloewe
*individual bits, my bad
@substance90 Do an experiment putting a large rare earth magnet on your harddrive and let us know what happens.
can i rip 8 of these out of their heat sinks and throw them in my 8x2.5" bay QNAP or will the karma police catch me on this one??