PC Perspective - Western Digital VelociRaptor 300GB WD3000GLFS Review

	Western Digital VelociRaptor 300GB WD3000GLFS Review - Evolution
	Author: Ryan Shrout Date: Apr 21, 2008 Subject: Storage Manufacturer: Western Digital

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Summary

The following is a summary of the more detailed analysis of the Western Digital VelociRaptor 300GB hard drive. For all the in-depth analysis and testing you'd expect from us, be sure to click this link to get all the details!

Click this link to get the full article

The new Western Digital VelociRaptor hard drive is probably unlike any other consumer unit you have seen before. In order to get the best mix of price, performance and reliability for the WD Raptor brand to make the jump to 300GB the team made a decision to not use the standard 3.5" hard drive design.

What you are essentially in this photo is a smaller form factor hard drive mounted in a device to have it physically fit the standard 3.5" drive bays we all know and use.

The black heatsink that the VelociRaptor rests in is just that - a large heatsink (called the WD IcePAK) designed to give the drive better heat dissipation and designed to fit perfectly into your current 3.5" drive specifications.

Let's see some performance results...

What can you really say after seeing all of those benchmarks and tests? Without a doubt the new Western Digital VelociRaptor 300GB drive is the fastest hard drive we have ever tested. The upgrade of the Raptor line to the SATA 3.0 GB/s specification was well overdue and you can clearly see that at least part of the performance boost was due to that change. With burst speeds of 247 MB/s and sustained transfers over 110 MB/s the VelociRaptor is the best enthusiast hard drive you'll find for any application we can think of - games, boot times, video encoding, etc.

Pricing and Availability

The Western Digital VelociRaptor will only initially be available today in a select few Alienware computer systems. Those of you that are itching to get one of these drives into your own PC will have to wait until mid-May before they are available in the channel. I am crossing my fingers that they show up before then as I know I need a handful around our testing labs and the sooner the better - as always is the case!

Despite the availability disappointment, the drive itself is priced kind of high as well: suggested MSRP is $299. Currently the Raptor X 150GB drive is selling for about $170 so the new VelociRaptor is coming in just under twice that. For users that were leaning towards the sub-$90 500GB Western Digital SE16 drives, the price jump to $299 might seem pretty severe and the allure of a full 1TB hard drive for under $250 is pretty enticing as well.

It is hard to argue against either of those points but we are talking about the fastest hard drive you can get your hands on (with the new VelociRaptor) that is also at least REASONABLE in capacity and I think that a lot of our readers will find that balance well worth the price tag.

Final Thoughts

If you can't tell by now, I am more than impressed with what Western Digital was able to bring to the table as a follow up to the hugely successful Raptor line of hard drives. The VelociRaptor 300GB is a worthy successor bringing not just twice the capacity but an incredible performance gain as well. If you want the fastest hard drive for your system the Western Digital VelociRaptor is it!

Be sure to use our pricing engine to find the best prices on hard drives and anything else you might need:

Click here for the Detailed Review