Western Digital VelociRaptor Specs vs Raptor

WD's new VelociRaptor drive has been released...for anyone who doesn't know, it's a larger/faster version of their 10,000 RPM Raptor drive. I just got one and ran some tests on my machine...I'll let the actual specs do their own talking:

Regular Raptor:



New VelociRaptor:



On average, the new Veloci's are about 50% faster than the older Raptor drives. Pricey? Yes...but obviously if you're doing any kind of I/O intensive work, totally worth it.

Meh, waste of money imo. Go buy yourself some more RAM I'll upgrade from 7200RPM when it comes to SSD.

Quote:

A faster hard drive will show performance results that are many times more apparent to a computer owner than upping RAM (unless you're going from like half a gig to 2 gigs, i.e. your machine is swapping a lot). If you were to go from a regular 7200RPM drive to a VelociRaptor, you'd swear you just spent a couple grand on a new computer.

+1 for SSD though, once the prices come down and storage space goes up it'll be a no brainer, especially for mobile computing.

so yeah the regular raptor isnt that impressive at all. i heard people talk about it like it was all that and a bag of chips


the velociraptor is impressive but not for the price. not for me anyway. maybe if i was rich =D

I have an old raptor running my OS and a few programs that I use, and honestly I couldn't imagine running these write heavy proc's (rendering, referencing files, images, movies) without a 10000 rpm drive. 

It all depends on what you need to do, but from what I have found, 10k rpm hds all scream compared to 7200. 

If the Velociraptor is faster than its predecessor, then I will be awaiting its price drop eagerly and then buy one.

Striping the drives a la RAID 0 would probably be a much cheaper way for someone to get a performance boost over 7200 RPM drives rather than dropping the money on a Raptor. I'd love to stripe these new Velociraptors if I had the money though. Or just get a SSD.     

Quote:
My seagate 7200.11 500GB has a faster transfer rate than the raptor, at a fraction of the cost. The access times and burst rates on the seagate are marginally slower.

I look forward to mainstream adoption of SSD's. I saw an Lenovo x300 in the office the other day, it was insanely thin, partly due to its SSD.

Quote:

When the regular raptor first came out a few years ago, it was definitely all that and a bag of chips. There weren't any other consumer level drives that came even close to its performance. The issue was that it was SATA I, and really all WD did over the years was bump the cache size up...now there are plenty of 7200RPM SATA II drives that will keep up with it. The VelociRaptor is full on SATA II, and it will be the performance king for at least a couple of years...once SSD prices start coming down, it'll have some competition.

300 bucks is a bit of a stretch, and when you look at it from a $ per gb standpoint, it's absymal compared to other drives that are 'fast enough'. If pure performance is what you're looking for though, I don't think there is another component that, for the money, will give you as much of a speed boost.

Eh, I'm happy with my RAID 0 setup. But really...someone should RAID 0 VelicoRaptors. For the really insane speeds =D

It appears the access time and burst rate for the Cavair is slightly better than the Raptor, and transfer rates are less stable, but on average better with the cavair.  Sata II really makes a difference!


160gb Raptor:



640gb 7200 Cavair: