Western Digital VelociRaptor 150 GB Bulk/OEM Hard Drive 2.5 Inch, 16 MB Cache, 10,000 RPM SATA II WD1500HLFS

Other products by Western Digital

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 4 x 1 inches ; 1.1 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B001EQQW1A
• Item model number: WD1500HLFS
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #3,455 in Electronics (See Bestsellers in Electronics)

  Popular in this category: (What's this?)

  #31 in

  Cell Phones & Service > Accessories > Chargers > Cradles

• Date first available at Amazon.com: April 2, 2008

Product Description

Product Description
Engineered for maximum speed! WD VelociRaptor, the member of the unique Western Digital`s 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. At the same time, WD VelociRaptor consumes 35% less power than the previous generation of WD Raptor. Rotary Acceleration Feed Forward optimizes operation and performance when the drives are used in vibration-prone, multi-drive chassis.Ideal for blade servers, performance enthusiast systems, workstations, and low-end servers.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fast and cool, but could be quieter, March 10, 2009

By	zemes - See all my reviews

Very impressive speed. The nearly 40% increase in RPM over the 7200 RPM drives is a significant improvement. The system start-up is noticeably faster. But the benefit to actual application programs varies. For example, programs that require small amount of data exchange will see minimal benefit. The speed of these programs is largely determined by the processor speed and RAM, as nearly everything is loaded into the RAM and not dependent much on the hard drive. On the other hand, applications like virus scanning which heavily depends on disk activity to access files will see the biggest benefit. I did a controlled test which showed that virus scanning is at least 30% faster with this disc than a 7200 RPM disk.

Noise is an issue. Anyone who claims this is quiet is probably used to noisy computing environments. If you have a quiet computer in a fairly quiet room, you hear this hard drive distinctively. I have an Antec 900 with all fans running at low speed. It is a quiet case but by no means a silent case. This hard drive is clearly the most audible component of the entire computer. It is not terribly noisy, and is actually quieter than most old hard drives. But the consumer grade hard drives have improved so much in noise in the last five years that most of them have become near silent. This hard drive is noticeably noisier.

Despite the noise, the hard drive is quite cool. My computer has a second hard drive (7200 RPM) in addition to this one. Both have very cool temperatures. The VelociRaptor is even 1° cooler. This is very impressive.

To those who are concerned about the small storage capacity of this hard drive, I'd say, think in terms of your true needs, not numbers. I believe this hard drive is ideal for computers that have multiple hard drives. In a two hard drive system, for example, the faster VelociRaptor can be the primary hard drive for running operating system and programs, and the second hard drive can be a regular large capacity drive for data and backup. For running the operating system and programs, 150 GB is more than enough. I have Windows 7 and tons of programs, which all together occupy only 50 GB, making the VelociRaptor more than sufficient. In fact, I could have just got a much cheaper 74 GB Raptor and still be plenty happy. For your need of greater capacity, just get a 1 TB drive as a dump drive to hold everything else including data and backup.

All in all, I recommend this hard drive to anyone who is building a multiple hard drive system. There is no better choice for the primary operating system drive.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Quiet AND fast!, February 24, 2009

By	Devin Baskin - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I replaced my 160GB 7200 RPM system drive with this and it is great! Much faster, and not any louder during normal use. Under heavy use, like when defragging there is slightly more disk noise. There is no annoying whine like older 10k drives.

Great drive!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fast, March 22, 2009

By	A. Petrosyan "bmerlover" - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This drive is fast, fairly quiet, very stable. There's a slight difference in boot time and programs seem to load a bit faster. It is expensive compared to other drives but it's worth it if you're after speed.