Western Digital VelociRaptor WD6000BLHX
600GB,10,000 RPM, Hard Drive SATA 6GB/s
If you can't afford a high capacity SSD, or Don't feel comfortable storing all your data on SSD, This drive is for you....
The Western Digital VelociRaptor is the fastest SATA hard drive. Its 10,000RPM spindle speed gives it fast access times and high transfer speeds. Since we don’t live in a vacuum this also has to be compared to SSDs which are orders of magnitude faster than this drive in random access situations. The big argument for a fast hard disk these days is still price for capacity. SSDs still haven’t reached the point where you can go out and buy a 500GB+ drive without applying for a second mortgage.
For the average consumer the VelociRaptor 600GB gives solid performance over 7,200RPM drives in daily situations, offers plenty of storage space for frequently used programs and media, and is affordable at just over $300. This drive also has the advantage of nearly unlimited data writes where SSDs still have a finite life even with wear-leveling.
Technical Overview
Western Digital VelociRaptor 600GB Specifications:
Killer speed - Built on the performance bloodlines of WD Raptor®, these 10,000 RPM drives, with SATA 6 Gb/s interface, and 32 MB cache deliver mind-bending performance. Not only are they 15% faster than the previous generation WD Raptor drives, but they also beat out all other competitors in the field.
Rock-solid reliability - Designed and manufactured to mission-critical enterprise-class standards to provide enterprise reliability in high duty cycle environments. These drives have the highest available reliability rating on a high capacity SATA drive.
Double the capacity - State-of-the-art technology packs twice the capacity per disk compared to its older brother WD Raptor resulting in up to 600 GB of high-performance storage space in this enterprise-class drive.
Ultra-cool operation - Consumes less idle power and uses similar active power as the previous generation of WD Raptor.
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.
The Western Digital Velociraptor has a very unique appearance compared to any other 3.5” drive on the market. The Velociraptor is made up of a 2.5” enterprise drive mounted to an “IcePack” heatsink frame with a pin-to-pin adapter to position the SATA and power connections in the universal location for backplane connections. The heatsink gives the drive a rugged and high-tech appearance compared to most other 3.5” drives on the market that all look the same.Build quality is very good with oversized components used throughout the construction of the drive. Starting at the exterior and moving inward, the heatsink assembly is thick machined metal.
The drive is secured to the heatsink or IcePack with four large Torx screws. With the drive removed you can see a thermal transfer pad that is used to shed heat away from the drive and into the IcePack assembly. The circuit board at the front of the IcePack is a connection adapter only with no controller chips or anything to modify the connection to a computer.
Compared to any other drive on the market the little 2.5” enterprise drive at the heart of the VelociRaptor is more protected than any other consumer drive in its recessed location. The 2.5” VelociRaptor has its circuit board designed in such a way to keep all the heat-generating components tightly pressed to the bottom of the drive body. This allows the body to act as a heatsink instead of making the chips shed heat into the open air. Another advantage is this keeps the surface-mount electronics safer in the event of being knocked around.