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Not too long ago, Before Solid State Drives, there were these heavy, clunky metal boxes called "Hard Drives", we still use them today but I can't help remembering the days of old when many complained about how little space there was and how slow they were, that is until Hewlett Packard came out with I believe a 10 and eventually 20GB blazing fast (and hot)1000 rpm drive, then Seagate came out with their incomparable, "Barracuda", same speed (1000 rpm) yet way more space. That name "Barracuda", still lives on today in their Solid State Drives. Eventually, Western Digital introduced the "Velociraptor", again, the same speed however a leaner meaner machine with a small footprint, sporting decent read and write algorithms and an awesome heat shield plus, an outstanding warranty. Several years ago, when I was finally able to afford one, I got two and set them at RAID 0 for even faster performance. Today, I have a few Samsung Solid State drives for running Windows and for running the games I feel need a quicker drive however, when it comes to mechanical drives for everything else, a pair of reliable Western Digital Veliciraptors paired in RAID 0 are my favorite option, just purchased another pair, love them. Always make sure to keep your investment safe and have enough power to run all of your hardware, try to have good airflow from front to back of your case with air filters to prevent dust from forming on internal contacts and prevent dust buildup on your fans, regardless of what your build, this will keep it cool and safe longer. Read full review
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Refurbished
Engineered for maximum speed! WD VelociRaptor, the newest member of our unique class of 10,000 RPM SATA hard drives, combines a SATA 3 Gb/s interface and 16 MB cache, to deliver performance that's up to 35% faster than its speedy older brother. Killer speed - Built on the performance bloodlines of WD Raptor, these 10,000 RPM drives, with SATA 3 Gb/s interface, and 16 MB cache deliver mind-bending performance. Not only are they 35 percent 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. With 1.4 million hours MTBF, 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 300 GB of high-performance storage space in this enterprise-class 2.5-inch drive. (Not compatible with notebook computers) IcePack™ mounting frame - The 2.5-inch WD VelociRaptor is enclosed in a 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. (This drive is not backplane compatible.) 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. 5-year limited warranty Ideal For Performance enthusiast systems, workstations, and low-end servers Compatibility Windows * Windows Vista/XP/2000 * SATA interface connector on motherboard or SATA host controller* * Available 3.5-inch internal drive bay Performance Specifications Rotational Speed 10,000 RPM (nominal) Buffer Size 16 MB Average Latency 5.50 ms (nominal) Load/unload Cycles 50,000 minimum Seek Times Read Seek Time 4.2 ms Write Seek Time 4.7 ms (average) Track-To-Track Seek Time 0.7 ms (average) Transfer Rates Buffer To Host (Serial ATA) 3 Gb/s (Max) Physical Specifications Formatted Capacity 300,069 MB Capacity 300 GB Interface SATA 3 Gb/s User Sectors Per Drive 586,072,368 Physical Dimensions English Height 1.028 Inches (Max) Length 5.787 Inches (Max) Width 4.00 Inches (+/- 0.010 inch) Weight 1.08 Pounds Metric Height 26.1 mm (Max) Length 147 mm (Max) Width 101.6 mm Weight 0.489 kg Environmental Specifications Shock Operating Shock (Read) 65G, 2 ms Non-operating Shock 300G, 2 ms Acoustics Idle Mode 29 dBA (average) Seek Mode 0 36 dBA (average) Temperature (English) Operating 32° F to 140° F Non-operating -40° F to 158° F Temperature (Metric) Operating -0° C to 60° C Non-operating -40° C to 70° C Humidity Operating 5-95% RH non-condensing Non-operating 5-95% RH non-condensing Altitude (English) Operating -1,000 feet to 10,000 feet Non-operating -1,000 feet to 40,000 feet Altitude (Metric) Operating -305M to 3,050M Non-operating -305M to 12,200M Vibration Operating Linear 20-300 Hz, 0.75G (0 to peak) Random 10-300 Hz, 0.008 g² / Hz Non-operating Low Frequency 0.05 g²/Hz (10 to 300 Hz) High Frequency 20-500 Hz, 4.0G (0 to peak)Read full review
I use these in many computers as a boot drive, when the expense of an SSD is not called for. Plus, I really only trust the Corsair P series of SSDs as much as I trust the Velociraptor. Being designed as a server drive, these babies have a lot of safety features that help to prevent unexpected drive failure. As with SCSI or SAS drives, you will get a warning if any parameters seem out of spec. Most drives just keep wobbling along until utter drive failure. I have yet to have one of these fail on me, and we have 10 or so online right now. They are also very quiet and output very little heat compared to Seagate's ES series, or WD's RE series drives. They also work well in arrays, if you need super fast throughput and can afford a few terabytes worth.
Even though MS windows 7 experience index gives only a 5.9, don't believe it... testing transfer rates consistently at 120 Meg bits per second. That is 6 times faster that 7200 spin drives. If you raid them you get 240+++ meg bit per second about half rate of SSD but only 1/3rd the price.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
I received it a few days ago, and just got done installing it. As I was installing it, I noticed that it did not match the images for this listing, which shows the placement of the SATA to be in dead center. To my "pleasant" surprise, it was the HLFS version with the conforming SATA standard placement of the SATA and power cable on the back (coulda shortened this but forgot the 2 word that describes this feature). I checked the box again and confirmed, it does say GLFS. So, I'm wondering if WD got with the program or they're reusing the unused retail boxes of the less popular model? I'm still scratching my head about it... I'm not too thrilled about the reports of overheating issues with the conforming version, but I was prepared for this and got a nice Silverstone Case with huge amounts of positive airflow to go with my build. Anyways, hope this info helps those looking for retail boxed versions of the Velociraptors. Haven't powered it up yet. Will update as things progress.Read full review
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