Conclusion
Western Digital's 600GB VelociRaptor arrives a long two years after its 300GB predecessor, and the new product doesn’t disappoint. Once again, a hard drive carrying the Raptor name claims the crown for being the fastest desktop hard drive available. There is a bit more to add about the WD6000HLHX, as performance alone shouldn’t be the only factor in your purchase decision.
VelociRaptor vs. Flash SSDs
First of all, we have to separate this drive from the latest flash SSDs, which have delivered a whole new performance level. You'll inevitably have to pick a solid state drive if you want maximum performance. Still, it's very important to also look at cost and capacity.
Even in a few years, it won't be possible to substitute high-capacity magnetic storage products with NAND flash. Memory supply and overall cost issues cannot be resolved quickly. We have 256GB SSDs available today, but the price tags of $650 and up are more than many users would spend on an entire PC or laptop. Most 128GB models are available between $275 and $400, which still is quite a bit. You can go for entry-level SSDs at $150 or less, but then you end up at 30GB to 60GB and sometimes saddled with performance that even a mainstream hard drive can top. Our spring SSD roundup will shed more light on this.
Balanced Storage for Enthusiasts
WD's 600GB VelociRaptor closes the gap between high-performance flash SSD storage and high-capacity 3.5” hard drives. The WD6000HLHX offers much improved low-level performance and dominates each and every performance benchmark, including PCMark Vantage, proving that performance leaps are still possible. All of this comes with decreased power consumption and excellent performance per watt. The SATA 6Gb/s interface is good for bragging rights, but little else, since performance stays well within the boundries of SATA 3Gb/s.
I would carefully guess that this might be the last VelociRaptor generation based on the current design because the gap between flash for highest performance applications and high capacity storage is widening. The new VelociRaptor is an attractive choice—as long as WD remains reasonable with its pricing.
Update: After taking a look at Western Digital's final press release, it looks like the 450GB VelociRaptor will be priced at $299, while the 600GB model runs $329. Both price points are fairly lofty when you consider the 2TB Caviar Black at $279.
I was hoping for a much more balanced price considering the SSD penetration today, alas WD decided that it is a premium product - again...
I will stick with my VR150, SSD and Spinpoint F3...
To entice me to get one of those drives they would have to bring the price down by at least $90.
Sorry WD, too little too late...
Is there really a market for this product anymore? People that want performance can get an Intel SSD for less (even 2 or 3 of them if they're on sale). If people need more space, large capacity drives are cheaper and the performance isn't bad. This middle ground seems unnecessary, but I guess that's why its the only drive in its class (and was unchanged for so long).
Nice article, but was their enough reason for 2 drive surface temp graphs? one in fahrenheit and one in celsius? And id rather get a cheaper intel or kingstone (mindblank..?) SSD over a raptor any day, at least you can get 150GB more room with only extra 30$, something SSDs dont yet offer xD
The review of the VelociRaptor is nice, but what I really appreciate are the benchmarks of the high-capacity (1TB and greater) 3.5" drives bundled in with this review. This is what I have been trying to find for a while. Thanks!
I run two VR160s in RAID0 and only spent $200 total for them. The new VRs look nice, but I'm not paying that much unless it's an SSD. Then again, I can't see moving to an SSD until the prices come down. So I'll just have to be happy with what I have.
This VR should be a 300GB. There's no point in the high capacity when most of the times this drive will be used in a SO or games. For space and average 2TB drive is enough.
Let the dinosaur be extinct.
Question: Is there really a market for this product anymore?
Answer: Yes. My company just bought a 100 nodes cluster - each node has five 7200 rpm 2.5" disks (unsure of the exact brand and so). That's 500 disks. Yes, there is a huge market for these kinds of disks. 2.5 inch disks fit nicely in a two nodes/2U rack form factor. It's not necessarily meant for gamers and such. The IcePack version is there to gain a little market share in the gamer/home user segment, who would probably be better off using a SSD as already mentioned. However, the "bare" version is probably what most companies are looking for. If your programs writes a couple of terabytes to the scratch disk back and forth all the time, SSD is not viable, because it doesn't offer enough disk space for the money at the moment.
Best!
Yeah what everyone else said. 450 gigs for $300 are you out of your mind? Maybe if it was like 160 gigs for $150 then maybe. The drives going over the $200 mark no matter what the capacity will turn-off consumers regardless. SSD are here to stay why would someone want to take a step backwards?
Still sticking with ssd... I'm yet to have one fail on me and i own 7 of them... Who can tell how reliable these would be?
Not a premium product anymore. I would get an ssd as my boot drive, say 60gb and put some cheap 1tb 7200 rpm drives in raid-0 as my storage base if i needed fast.
my current seagate 7200 1tb HDs in raid-0 as my main drive works just fine for me
What speed does 6Gb/s indicates?
They made a better drive, but they totally failed in the pricing department. These can't compete in the current market.
indicate*
god, too expensive. thought, theycould be cheaper considering SSDs and 2TB drives available. additionally, the streaming and sequential scores are not far from 2TB drives.
reminds me a bit of the new nvidia cards....
too little, too late, for too much
They made a better drive, but they totally failed in the pricing department. These can't compete in the current market.
I agree and i was hoping this drive would be some sort of a hybrid between an SSD and classical HDD. That would have justified the pricing.
I agree and i was hoping this drive would be some sort of a hybrid between an SSD and classical HDD. That would have justified the pricing.
The thing is, this is the same format that the original Vraptors were, so it goes without saying that manufacturing costs aren't high enough to justify the price they're trying to push.
But you're totally right. They'd have a killer product if this was priced reasonably or if they had managed some sort of hybrid technology.
I guess people don't understand this intended to be a niche product.
No device out there is faster, and more capacious at near the same price. So, if you want this balance, and don't want an SSD which can only tolerate so many writes before it fails, then this will do well for you. It's not for everyone, it never has been. But, it's very fast for a magnetic disk, and if you don't want the compromises of an SSD, it's as good as it gets even at $300. Most people won't want it, but it will have it's small market, which is all niche products aim for. And it's better than its predecessor and everything out there at what it is. That's not bad.
I agree they need to come down on the pricing quite a bit, but this fills the gap very nicely:
SSD = OS and Swap
This = Games/Heavy HDD apps
2 TB = Everything Else