Western Digital has refreshed its VelociRaptor lineup with two new 10,000 RPM SATA hard drives.
The 450 GB and 600 GB drives are apparently designed for blade servers, high-performance PCs, Macs, workstations and rack servers.
“As the only 10,000 RPM SATA hard drive on the market today and a favorite amongst enthusiast and enterprise groups, the WD VelociRaptor hard drive now comes packed with twice the capacity and up to 15% performance increase over the previous generation,” explained WD spokesperson Tom McDorman.
“The Raptor is built with enterprise-class mechanics that provide 24×7 durability under high-performance demands and packs up to 600 GB of capacity into a 2.5-inch enterprise form factor.”
McDorman added that the drive was also available in an IcePack enclosure, which he described as a 3.5-inch mounting frame with a built-in heat sink to fit the drive into a standard system bay.
Additional specs include:
- SATA 6 Gb/s interface and 32 MB cache.
- 1.4 million hours MTBF.
- Halogen-free.
- 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 less wear to the recording head as well as improved protection in transit.
The 450GB WD VelociRaptor retails at $300, while the 600GB model carries a $330 price tag.
