Western Digital VelociRaptor hard drive

Western Digital VelociRaptor hard drive

       

Western Digital is back with a brand new hard drive known as the WD VelociRaptor, where it will be available in 450GB and 600GB capacities. These are the next generation of its 10,000 RPM SATA family of hard drives, where it was specially designed to cater fro blade servers, high-performance PCs, Mac computers, professional workstations, in addition to 1U and 2U rack servers – basically any situation that calls for a balance of high performance and capacity. It also holds the distinction of being the only 10,000 RPM SATA hard drive on the market, and has been a firm favorite in the past amongst enthusiast and enterprise groups. Nice to know this latest iteration of the VelociRaptor brand now features double the capacity and up to 15% performance increase.
The WD VelociRaptor hard drive comes with enterprise-class mechanics that provide round the clock durability under high-performance demands, where up to 600GB of data can be crammed into a 2.5″ enterprise form factor. Apart from that, you can pick up the WD VelociRaptor drive in the IcePack enclosure, which is essentially a 3.5″ mounting frame that comes complete with a built-in heat sink. This factory customization will be able to fit the drive into a standard 3.5″ system bay while keeping it extra cool even when it is installed in a high-performance desktop chassis and 3.5″ hard drive form factor enterprise chassis.
Among the features that are found on the new WD VelociRaptor hard drives include :-

• Killer speed – SATA 6 Gb/s interface and 32 MB cache enhance the next generation 10,000 RPM WD VelociRaptor making it up to 15% faster than the award-winning previous generation.
• Monstrous capacity – WD VelociRaptor SATA drives are available in capacities up to 600 GB, double the capacity of the previous generation.
• Rock-solid reliability – Designed and manufactured to mission-critical enterprise-class standards to provide enterprise reliability in high duty cycle environments. With 1.4 million hours MTBF, these drives have the highest available reliability rating on a high capacity SATA drive.
• Ultra-cool operation – Consumes no more power than the previous generation WD VelociRaptor while offering double the capacity and higher performance.
• IcePack mounting frame – The 2.5-inch WD VelociRaptor is enclosed in a backplane-ready 3.5-inch enterprise-class mounting frame with a built-in heat sink that keeps this powerful little drive extra cool when installed in high-performance desktop chassis.
• Rotary Acceleration Feed Forward (RAFF) – Optimizes operation and performance when the drives are used in vibration-prone, multi-drive chassis.
• NoTouch ramp load technology – The recording head never touches the disk media ensuring significantly less wear to the recording head and media as well as better drive protection in transit.
• Environmentally conscious – In addition to being ROHS compliant, this generation of WD VelociRaptor is also a halogen-free design.

Expect the WD VelociRaptor (model WD4500HLHX and WD6000HLHX to retail for $299 for the 450GB model, while the 600GB model is going for $329.