Western Digital’s 150GB Raptor X

Mathew Everett (Sledgehammer70) Western Digital have released their new WD1500AF Raptor X hard drive, which is now considered the fastest hard drive on the market, rated at 10,000RPM with 16MB cache and 150GB capacity.

February 6, 2006 1:51 PM ET in News,

Western Digital have released their new WD1500AF Raptor X hard drive, which is now considered the fastest hard drive on the market, rated at 10,000RPM with 16MB cache and 150GB capacity. The burning question is though, will the new Raptor be able to out perform modern RAID setups. Toms Hardware finds out.

View: WD1500AD Raptor X-Tends Performance Lead

We took the new 10,000 RPM WD1500AD Raptor and compared it to a 7,200 RPM RAID 0 array, since this would be the alternative if performance and high capacity are important to you. We took two NL35 drives by Seagate since these were available; technically they are not very different from the Barracuda 7200.8, and thus one of the faster 7,200 RPM models available. We realize that two 400 GB drives would be an investment that easily exceeds the costs of one WD1500 Raptor. However, using two 300 GB drives is doable for roughly the same price, and this should result in a storage subsystem performance that outruns the WD1500 Raptor… or maybe not?

Source: Toms Hardware

4 Comments:

  1. RWB
    6 Feb '06, 6:54 pm

  2. Sledgehammer70
    6 Feb '06, 9:32 pm

    I think I might buy a case get a nice discount for buying by the case

  3. Spinner
    7 Feb '06, 12:25 am

    I recommended the non-X version (no-transparent case) a few weeks back to a friend to replace his 2x WD80JB RAID array. Let's just say, he's very pleased.

    I hate to say it, but I think even though RAID 0 would definitely still have the edge in certain situations (I haven't read the article yet), the added data security and interoperability make buying one of these babies, as a replacement for RAID 0, a real alternative.

    However, me being me, I would simply have to have the best of both worlds.

    There's only one place I can go from my existing 1st generation Raptor array, and it isn’t going to be any other dinosaur.

  4. Zap (Guest)
    8 Mar '06, 1:57 am

    This hard drive is great....i love the little window that lets you see the hard drive at work...nice little geek feature.....i just built a new system with this drive and could not be more pleased....the drive is a little noisy here and there but other than that it is well worth the $350.00 ...

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