WD Introduces Fastest Ever VelociRaptor HDDs

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Not ready to go SSD? Then these could fill your need for speed.

Need some serious storage to deliver your data in a hurry but you can't afford to tap into solid state drives yet? Western Digital announced today that it is now shipping VelociRaptor 450GB and 600GB hard drives, the next generation of its 10,000 RPM SATA family of hard drives.

The WD VelociRaptor hard drive packs 600 GB of capacity into a 2.5-inch enterprise form factor; but it is also available in the IcePack enclosure, a 3.5-inch mounting frame with a built-in heat sink.

The new drives run on a SATA 6 Gb/s interface and with a 32MB cache, which WD claims will give it a 15 percent performance boost over previous generation.

MSRP for the WD VelociRaptor 450 GB (model WD4500HLHX) is $299 USD and the 600 GB (model WD6000HLHX) is $329 USD.

Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
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37 Comments Comment from the forums
  • mister g
    I wonder, does the heatsink really need to be there or is it because a full 3.5" version too expensive and/or too buggy to make.
    Reply
  • rkelly1
    will they still work on a sata 3gb/s interface
    Reply
  • XD_dued
    rkelly1will they still work on a sata 3gb/s interface
    Yes its backwards compatible
    Reply
  • tehramen
    Might as well just put 4 7200 RPM HDDs in raid 0.
    Reply
  • mlopinto2k1
    tehramenMight as well just put 4 7200 RPM HDDs in raid 0.Ooooooor, get an SSD. ;)
    Reply
  • mister g
    My bad, didn't know Velociraptors were usually 2.5". Just got off Anandtech.
    Reply
  • captainnemojr
    as i said in another post, the new Caviar Black 640 has a 64mb cache and is SATA 6gb/s and spins at 7200 rpm and is $80 bucks. This one just spins faster and is 4X more expensive just for 2800 rpm with all else being equal except LESS cache. That's crazy and definitely not worth the faster few seconds I'd get on Windows loading or a game load to me. Better off getting 2 Caviar Black and running in RAID 0.
    Reply
  • HansVonOhain
    Still very expensive. For about 100 dollars more you could get yourself a 160gb SSD which is faster, quiter(silent) and much more power efficient.
    Reply
  • brennon7
    Barely beats the spinpoint at triple the price. Raptor = FAIL
    Reply
  • claykin
    tehramenMight as well just put 4 7200 RPM HDDs in raid 0.
    Hee, hee. Either:

    1) You've been lucky and never had a disk crash.
    2) You don't value your data much.
    3) You take images of your disks daily so when a disk dies, you can get back up and running quickly.

    RAID 0 is not for the average user. Those who use it usually learn the hard way. After that they swear off RAID 0 as a viable option.
    Reply