Windows 7 VelociRaptor Returns: 6Gb/s, 600GB, And 10,000 RPM

[reghakr]

Western Digital’s Raptor family hit the enthusiast hard drive market like an asteroid in 2003, and has been a benchmark

in high-end desktop storage ever since. With no direct competition in its spindle speed class, this 10,000 RPM hard drive remains a coveted choice for enthusiasts and IT professionals building entry-level servers, particularly now that the latest VelociRaptor models have arrived with 450GB and 600GB capacities, improved specifications, and increased performance.


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Following Trends
Seagate's Barracuda ATA excited the mainstream drive world in 1997 when it took the industry's first stab at 7,200 RPM desktop storage. It only made sense that a 10,000 RPM evolution would eventually follow. Given that [COLOR=blue !important][COLOR=blue !important]enterprise[/COLOR][/COLOR] drives had been running at 10K since 1996 with the Seagate Cheetah, adoption was only a matter of time and production volume.

• VelociRaptor...
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In a way, Western Digital was "lucky enough" to be unlucky with its SCSI enterprise drive business from 1997 to 1999. From these efforts were born the roots of the Raptor series. Other drive manufacturers didn’t want to risk cannibalizing their existing server/enterprise hard drive business, but WD had nothing to lose. This remains one of the main reasons why the Raptor family is the only 10K SATA family on today's market.

Although spindle speed hasn't changed since the original Raptor launched, there has been considerable progress on other fronts. Not only data density climbed but WD also transitioned the 3.5” Raptor into the 2.5” VelociRaptor, following the trend toward smaller drives for higher storage densities in server environments. This downsizing allows many more drives to be installed within the same dimensional footprint.

Read Full Story: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/wd6000hlhx-velociraptor-600gb,2600.html#xtor=RSS-182

 

[Athlonite]

I'd pay the NewEgg price if they'd ship it to NZ but they wont as even with the cost of dollar conversion it's less than the 300GB version is here :
Western Digital VelociRaptor WD3000HLFS 16MB 300GB $339.66NZD

New Zealand retailers are a bunch of price gougers