- Ships in Certified Frustration-Free Packaging
- 300 GB Capacity
- SATA 3 GB/s; 16 MB Cache
- 10,000 RPM Spindle Speed
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Product Description
"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 is up to 35% faster than its speedy older brother. Key Features & Detailed Specifications: Average Latency 5.5 ms, Warranty 5 Years, Formatted Capacity 300 GB, Form Factor 3.5""-internal, Spindle Speed 10000 rpm, Compliant Standards RoHS, Interface Type SATA 3G, Cache/Buffer Size 16MB (Read: Adaptive & Write: Yes) and Average Seek Time 4.2 ms, User Sectors Per Drive -- 586,072,368. Transfer Rates: Buffer To Host (Serial ATA): 3 Gb/s (Max) and Transfer Rate (Buffer To Disk): 120 MB/s (Sustained). Average latency is 5.5 ms. Drive ready time -- 7.0 sec (average), 10 sec (maximum), Error rate (non-recoverable) <1 in 10e15 bits read. Supports LBA. Seek time: Read: 4.2 ms (average) & Write: 4.7 ms (average), Track-to-track seek time -- 0.7 (maximum). Load/unload cycles -- 50,000 minimum. Limited warranty -- 5-year "
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
24 of 24 people found the following review helpful
Amazon Verified Purchase
There is no other speed improvement investment you can make on your computer that will have a more significant effect on speed than a fast hard drive. Faster video card? Nope. More memory? Nope. Faster CPU? Nope. I have done them all.
For home use, us hacks are forced to use mainstream parts because of costs. SCSI is the fastest alternative to SATA and EIDE drives. But, an Adaptec SCSI card costs about $300+ and the hard drive can cost $300 to $500 depending on size. SCSI hard drives for that reason are always smaller in capacity and most are under 100GB. I'm in engineering and my work computers have always been SCSI. But, you can make any dog computer rock by upgrading to SCSI if you have a big wallet.
This WD Velociraptor hard drive is the in between choice. It is not as fast as SCSI but close, and it is much faster than the standard hard drives. Compared to the 120GB SATA hard drive I replaced, I can notice a huge improvement for programs to load. If I had to guess I would say the speed is about double or a little more. Based on the specs for a 12msec standard hard drive, these are in the 5 to 6 msec range. Not bad for a $200 300GB hard drive. Some have complained about the cost per GB being high, but if you look at the cost per GB per second of the Velociraptor, it is the cheapest available on the planet. And remember, speed upgrades are not linear relative to costs. To get this close to SCSI speeds for this size hard drive I could spend $1000 in the SCSI world. I am impressed with this hard drive.
For those out there who might be hesitant because of the difficulty factor on how to transfer your current data onto the new hard drive, WD has created software which will do this whole change process for you with about 3 clicks of the mouse. The software called Data Lifeguard Tools comes on a CD with every retail version. This version sold here is the OEM version and has no software. But, you can download the tools for free from the WD website. All I had to do was add the new hard drive to my system and the software recognized it even though it was not partitioned or formated. It asked if you want to transfer everything from your boot drive to the new drive and that was it. After it finishes which takes several hours, you shutdown and take the old one out and you're done. Very easy process.
For home use, us hacks are forced to use mainstream parts because of costs. SCSI is the fastest alternative to SATA and EIDE drives. But, an Adaptec SCSI card costs about $300+ and the hard drive can cost $300 to $500 depending on size. SCSI hard drives for that reason are always smaller in capacity and most are under 100GB. I'm in engineering and my work computers have always been SCSI. But, you can make any dog computer rock by upgrading to SCSI if you have a big wallet.
This WD Velociraptor hard drive is the in between choice. It is not as fast as SCSI but close, and it is much faster than the standard hard drives. Compared to the 120GB SATA hard drive I replaced, I can notice a huge improvement for programs to load. If I had to guess I would say the speed is about double or a little more. Based on the specs for a 12msec standard hard drive, these are in the 5 to 6 msec range. Not bad for a $200 300GB hard drive. Some have complained about the cost per GB being high, but if you look at the cost per GB per second of the Velociraptor, it is the cheapest available on the planet. And remember, speed upgrades are not linear relative to costs. To get this close to SCSI speeds for this size hard drive I could spend $1000 in the SCSI world. I am impressed with this hard drive.
For those out there who might be hesitant because of the difficulty factor on how to transfer your current data onto the new hard drive, WD has created software which will do this whole change process for you with about 3 clicks of the mouse. The software called Data Lifeguard Tools comes on a CD with every retail version. This version sold here is the OEM version and has no software. But, you can download the tools for free from the WD website. All I had to do was add the new hard drive to my system and the software recognized it even though it was not partitioned or formated. It asked if you want to transfer everything from your boot drive to the new drive and that was it. After it finishes which takes several hours, you shutdown and take the old one out and you're done. Very easy process.
12 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Amazon Verified Purchase
Replaced my 150GB Raptor with this VelociRaptor and an immediate change was noted. Very fast. Very impressive.
Want the fastest desktop hard drive available? Get this drive.
Enough said.
Want the fastest desktop hard drive available? Get this drive.
Enough said.
16 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Fast drive but is an OEM product and not listed as such. Disk has many bad sectors out of the box
December 18, 2008
Amazon Verified Purchase
First off, this is not listed as an OEM product, but it is in fact OEM. That means that it does not come with any supporting documentation, SATA cables, power cables, or retail packaging. Its very frustrating that Amazon has neglected to list this as "OEM." I don't have a problem buying OEM, I do it all the time as I've got a large supply of left over computer parts and always have things like SATA cables lying around. However, for the 'average joe,' expecting a retail package, the way this item is listed could be very misleading. Usually OEM parts are listed that way in their title. This one isn't.
Evaluating a hard drive is fairly easy; does it do what it is supposed to do? Is it reliable? In this case, the answer is yes, and maybe. The drive works fine, is lightning fast, and performs as expected. My Vista boot time dropped about 20 seconds when booting from this drive, which is pretty impressive.
However, when cloning my current Seagate 500gb drive to this one, I found very many bad sectors on the drive. I've uploaded a photo to support this. There were so many that I was ultimately forced to do a 'ignore all' just to get the cloning finished. That many bad sectors on a brand new drive is really annoying and simply not acceptable. I'll be returning the drive for a replacement, and will update this review once it's been received.
In concussion, this is a fast drive. It is OEM and not listed as such. I experienced a whole lot of bad sectors when cloning from my old drive. I have no choice but to leave this a drive a pretty poor review. Your mileage may vary, and if you get one of these with no bad sectors, you will likely love this drive.
Evaluating a hard drive is fairly easy; does it do what it is supposed to do? Is it reliable? In this case, the answer is yes, and maybe. The drive works fine, is lightning fast, and performs as expected. My Vista boot time dropped about 20 seconds when booting from this drive, which is pretty impressive.
However, when cloning my current Seagate 500gb drive to this one, I found very many bad sectors on the drive. I've uploaded a photo to support this. There were so many that I was ultimately forced to do a 'ignore all' just to get the cloning finished. That many bad sectors on a brand new drive is really annoying and simply not acceptable. I'll be returning the drive for a replacement, and will update this review once it's been received.
In concussion, this is a fast drive. It is OEM and not listed as such. I experienced a whole lot of bad sectors when cloning from my old drive. I have no choice but to leave this a drive a pretty poor review. Your mileage may vary, and if you get one of these with no bad sectors, you will likely love this drive.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Disappointment on Reliability
I was inpressed by the speed and capacity, and it worked very well for 3 years. Turned it on at 6 or 7 AM and off at 9 or 10 PM for 3 years and 3 months in a stripe pair. Read more
Published 1 month ago by No i havent taken it apart ...yet
Better than SCSI or Raid 0 or even Solid state
Why bother with configuring a SCSI or two drive in raid 0 when this is just as fast and it plug in play. Read more
Published 18 months ago by PaceyPimps
TO BAD MECH DRIVES ARE ON THE WAY OUT
FAST DRIVE IS FAST, BUT SSD WILL REPLACE THEM SOON, SO YOU MAY WANT TO WAIT FOR A PRICE DROP FOR COMPARABLE SSD.
Published 20 months ago by Yue Chi Man
RAID FAILURES - BAD FIRMWARE
EXPENSIVE AND PRONE TO FAILURE. Known firmware problems result in drive failure in 49.7 days of usage. Read more
Published on April 1, 2010 by Marvin P. Braswell
Raptor is the way to go for serious performance and general use as it...
Firstly, I would never consider getting anything but the Raptor hard drive for any new computer I was going to be serious about(as in gaming and main rig) I usually prefer to pair... Read more
Published on December 30, 2009 by Kid Prometheus
Very Fast Drive, very bad packaging
I can't say allot on HDD, its fast and doing the job.
Take in consideration these important factors:
1- it's not exactly 3. Read more
Take in consideration these important factors:
1- it's not exactly 3. Read more
Published on March 26, 2009 by Victor M. Mitri
Good when they work..
I purchased a case of 40 of these drives for 20 servers (RAID 1) in my datacenter. I had 6 fail within the first 3 months of operation. The drives are great when they work. Read more
Published on March 21, 2009 by Brian Reigle
fast hard drive system
I built my PC with one of these drives and then added a second to form a RAID 0 set. To say the least, I'm extremely pleased with the result.
Published on February 7, 2009 by Anthony M. Forte
Fast
Very fast drive, works great, only negative is that it does not lock onto the metal clip on newer sata cables, and it is pricy though Amazon has a great price.
Published on January 30, 2009 by GrumpyOne
You will notice the speed difference!
I'm a loyal Western Digital fan. So when my C:\ drive started making noises and locking up windows (an old WD 320GB Caviar) it was time to upgrade. Read more
Published on January 28, 2009 by P. McGuire
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