Western Digital VelociRaptor (300GB) review
in Hard disks
Verdict
Fearsome performance and features, but you'll pay the price.
Review Date: 29 Apr 2009
Reviewed By: Mike Jennings
Price when reviewed: £191 (£220 inc VAT)
Buy it now for: £165
(see more store prices)
Overall Rating
Features & Design
Value for Money
Performance
The VelociRaptor instantly differs from other disks - instead of the staid 3.5in design, this is actually a 2.5in notebook-sized model in a metallic 3.5in heatsink shell.
This is also the only drive this month that offers a 10,000rpm spindle speed over its two 150GB platters, and this is reflected in a seek time of 7ms - the best this month by quite a margin.
Other results underline the VelociRaptor's dominance. The file read result of 102.6MB/sec is the fastest on test, and the write score of 85.6MB/sec isn't far behind Samsung's 750GB SpinPoint.
Read and write access times of 7ms and 2ms beat virtually every other drive in the Labs too, and a burst speed of 235.6MB/sec is also impressive.
This speed, though, comes at a price: £191 for 300GB equates to 68.4p/GB. Costly, then, but if you're after ultimate performance without SSD prices, the VelociRaptor is where you should look.
Author: Mike Jennings
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