[Brian]

WD is out with their latest VelociRaptor which takes over from it's older 600GB brother as the fastest SATA hard drive on the market.

Western Digital VelociRaptor 1TB Review

[geenp]

Thanks for the review.

You write that the smaller capacities have been short stroked to achieve their smaller capacities, does that mean that even the 250GB is technically a 1TB drive? My ignorance might be showing here but isn't that a waste on their part to charge less for the same hardware? Or are they are some other factors at play here? I know CPUs manufacturers disable cores to salvage defective dies but that doesn't seem applicable here.

[Noli]

I'm not sure that this drive is 'innovating' as you say as it just refines an existing model. Not saying there isn't value in that (half of Apple's products are evolutionary and we all know what their market cap looks like) but I'd just distinguish from actually inventing something that might become a new paradigm.

[Brian]

 geenp, on 16 April 2012 - 08:51 AM, said:

Thanks for the review.

You write that the smaller capacities have been short stroked to achieve their smaller capacities, does that mean that even the 250GB is technically a 1TB drive? My ignorance might be showing here but isn't that a waste on their part to charge less for the same hardware? Or are they are some other factors at play here? I know CPUs manufacturers disable cores to salvage defective dies but that doesn't seem applicable here.

This is how nearly all hard drives are sold. It would cost more to create different mechanical designs based around platter count. In some cases there are distinct offerings though of lower capacity but more dense platters. The Hitachi 7K1000.D comes to mind.

http://www.storagere...1tb_hard_drives

[Brian]

 Noli, on 16 April 2012 - 10:01 AM, said:

I'm not sure that this drive is 'innovating' as you say as it just refines an existing model. Not saying there isn't value in that (half of Apple's products are evolutionary and we all know what their market cap looks like) but I'd just distinguish from actually inventing something that might become a new paradigm.

When no one else is doing anything like it, I think it's innovating, maybe it's a matter or personal taste

[fallbreak]

 Brian, on 16 April 2012 - 10:10 AM, said:

When no one else is doing anything like it, I think it's innovating, maybe it's a matter or personal taste

Good review as always. And did I say I LOVE the pictures?

A feast of HDD engineering. I great product which will find many happy customers, I am sure of that.

[Vampire]

 Brian, on 16 April 2012 - 06:58 AM, said:

WD is out with their latest VelociRaptor which takes over from it's older 600GB brother as the fastest SATA hard drive on the market.

Western Digital VelociRaptor 1TB Review

Everyone was waiting for a comparison between Seagate Momentus XT 2 vs Western Digital VelociRaptor.

[ChrisMcPole]

As always two main issues:

1. Still slower than SSDs (expected).
2. Louder/noisier than before.

[uhs]

 ChrisMcPole, on 16 April 2012 - 12:17 PM, said:

As always two main issues:

1. Still slower than SSDs (expected).
2. Louder/noisier than before.

I'd like to add:
3. More expensive than ever, the 250 GB version is almost in the price range of 240-256 GB SSDs now.
4. Sequential transfer rate is not necessarily the fastest of SATA HDDs around: Current Seagate 1TB/platter versions offer 211-214 MB/sec. max. transfer and the 3 TB version of it costs US$ 169, i.e. just about the same as the 250GB Velociraptor.

Nope, I always liked, owned and sold a lot of WD hard disk drives, but due to prices, I never touched any (Veloci-)Raptor.
If WD wanted to place the Velociraptor as an alternative to 128GB SSD+ 2-3TB HDD settings (or short stroked RAID-0 settings with 7200 rpm 1TB/platter HDDs), than their prices should not exceed twice the amount of current leading 1 TB/platter 7200 rpm SATA HDDs.

uhs

[fullermd]

 geenp, on 16 April 2012 - 08:51 AM, said:

You write that the smaller capacities have been short stroked to achieve their smaller capacities, does that mean that even the 250GB is technically a 1TB drive?

No, it presumably means the 250GB is physically a 333GB, and the 500 a 666. 333GB per platter, and 1/2/3 platters in the various sizes.

(well, I guess it's theoretically possible they could be selling a 3-platter very short-stroked design as 250, but that would be nuts)