HDD not dead: Western Digital Working On Next Gen VelociRaptor Drive

jmke · 5th January 2010, 13:40

WDC has decided that it is time for a refresh in order to push its capacity advantage further, and is currently developing its fifth generation Raptor. It will also be a 10k RPM drive, but will utilize advances in areal density to achieve a 600GB capacity with two platters. The new drive will also have "a significantly larger cache", but our source won't specify whether it was 32MB or 64MB. The best part will be the pricing, as it will launch at close to the original launch price of the 300GB VelociRaptor. A new single platter 300GB version will follow later on.

http://www.dailytech.com/Western+Dig...ticle17194.htm

jmke · 5th January 2010, 13:41

Quote:

HDD not dead:

might have spoken too soon?

Quote:

The VR300GB reviews on NewEgg:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...ge=1&Keywords=

Sort by lowest rating, I find this very accurate, out of 12 drives I have purchased all at the same time (bad idea), I have had numerous failures, in almost every instance its bad sectors. I have a similar configuration but with Raptor150s and it has worked fine with only 1 or 2 failures in the past 2-4 years.

For the Velociraptor 300s, I have had a total of:

5 failures from the original disks
1 failure from the RMA I received from WD
6 total failures out of 12 drives

http://forums.storagereview.net/inde...howtopic=27303

5th January 2010, 19:07

they can try to fight extinction, but they will die out like their namesake

jmke · 5th January 2010, 19:32

http://www.dailytech.com/Western+Dig...ticle15436.htm

5th January 2010, 22:44

Pointless.

If you want a fast OS drive you can get an SSD.
If you need fast storage, modern 1TB HDDs are fine for pushing data around.

What would the target market for that drive be?

6th January 2010, 10:28

It'll probably depend on the price they'll ask for it, if it costs half of what an SSD costs, then it's probably a good, cheap alternative.
Also, with current pricings for a SSD, I don't think HDDs will die soon because nobody is willing to pay the price for a 1TB SSD atm (and probably in the next couple of years).

About the VR300 which dies quickly, it's probably bad luck. A few years ago, I had 3 Maxtor drives which died within 3 months and Tones was kind enough to give me a WD drive which is still working.

6th January 2010, 11:19

I agree, all that it might be good for would be mass storage.

But, if you think about it, it'll be too expensive to compete with current large drives for storage and too slow to compete with SSDs as an OS drive.

jmke · 6th January 2010, 15:16

6th January 2010, 16:47

Come on jmke

Game loading is sequential transfer, i.e. what HDDs suffer less from.

The overall user experience and multitasking on a SSD is miles better. Random read/writes is what the crappy Microsoft OS suffers most from.

And the FPS figures!?!

jmke · 6th January 2010, 16:50

game loading is not that important, but....

Quote:

Originally Posted by Faiakes

And the FPS figures!?!

those min FPS say it all, the ability of the SSD to quickly fix new data for the game engine to render puts it solidly in the lead over any HDD; +6fps is nothing to sneer at, and compared to the old Seagate it's night and day difference, more than twice better!

5th January 2010, 13:40	#1
jmke Madshrimp Join Date: May 2002 Location: 7090/Belgium Posts: 79,022	HDD not dead: Western Digital Working On Next Gen VelociRaptor Drive WDC has decided that it is time for a refresh in order to push its capacity advantage further, and is currently developing its fifth generation Raptor. It will also be a 10k RPM drive, but will utilize advances in areal density to achieve a 600GB capacity with two platters. The new drive will also have "a significantly larger cache", but our source won't specify whether it was 32MB or 64MB. The best part will be the pricing, as it will launch at close to the original launch price of the 300GB VelociRaptor. A new single platter 300GB version will follow later on. http://www.dailytech.com/Western+Dig...ticle17194.htm __________________

5th January 2010, 19:32	#4
jmke Madshrimp Join Date: May 2002 Location: 7090/Belgium Posts: 79,022	http://www.dailytech.com/Western+Dig...ticle15436.htm __________________

6th January 2010, 15:16	#8
jmke Madshrimp Join Date: May 2002 Location: 7090/Belgium Posts: 79,022	__________________

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5th January 2010, 19:07	#3
Rutar Posts: n/a	they can try to fight extinction, but they will die out like their namesake

5th January 2010, 22:44	#5
Faiakes Posts: n/a	Pointless. If you want a fast OS drive you can get an SSD. If you need fast storage, modern 1TB HDDs are fine for pushing data around. What would the target market for that drive be?

6th January 2010, 10:28	#6
wutske Posts: n/a	It'll probably depend on the price they'll ask for it, if it costs half of what an SSD costs, then it's probably a good, cheap alternative. Also, with current pricings for a SSD, I don't think HDDs will die soon because nobody is willing to pay the price for a 1TB SSD atm (and probably in the next couple of years). About the VR300 which dies quickly, it's probably bad luck. A few years ago, I had 3 Maxtor drives which died within 3 months and Tones was kind enough to give me a WD drive which is still working.

6th January 2010, 11:19	#7
Faiakes Posts: n/a	I agree, all that it might be good for would be mass storage. But, if you think about it, it'll be too expensive to compete with current large drives for storage and too slow to compete with SSDs as an OS drive.

6th January 2010, 16:47	#9
Faiakes Posts: n/a	Come on jmke Game loading is sequential transfer, i.e. what HDDs suffer less from. The overall user experience and multitasking on a SSD is miles better. Random read/writes is what the crappy Microsoft OS suffers most from. And the FPS figures!?!