Best Complement to WD Raptor 150GB 10,000RPM

Any 500GB SATA 3GB or better would work as a storage drive. Bare in mind that 5400 rpm drives are slower than 7200rpm.

Understood. However, I sort of wanted the fastest drive I could get (all else equal): would an arbitrary 7200 or 10000 drive (e.g. VelociRaptor) work as well or do I have to worry about my SATA controller?

Thanks very much for the post.

What are your SATA controllers SATA 150 or SATA 3GB? (2007 most things were SATA 3GB)

That is the $64,000 question.  

I had to contact VM to get the build order; they don't have a separate controller section but under storage I have two of these:

"150GB Western Digital Raptor 10,000rpm SATA/150, 16MB Cache, NCQ
(Incredible Performance!) (+$210.00)"

My inference from the term "SATA/150" is that I have, indeed, SATA/150; however, if there is a more definitive way to determine my controller (either through the computer itself or by looking at the hardware) then I'll do it. My suspicion is that the controller is on the MB:

"Genuine Intel® G33 mATX Motherboard with DDR2, PCI Express, 1333MHz FSB
DG33BU"

but I can't be sure.

Again, I appreciate the help.

Best answer selected by nlk10010.

I was thinking of getting a new computer (C#-VisualStudio-MVC development) but the VM still looks like new and seems to work fine. So I'll probably end up adding a drive, throwing an additional 4MB of memory in there and installing 64-Bit Windows. Considering a new machine is $600-700 that's probably a decent move.

I appreciate you taking the time to do the research and help me out.