The newest incarnation of the 74Gb WD Raptor sports 10,000 RPM spindle speed, 4.6ms read seek time, and a two-platter design now at 150GB capacity.  It’s only real competition are the previous Raptors, which for the basis of the tests.  These drives still aren’t quite ready to take on SCSI, but they are certainly the next best thing in speed.  AnandTech does have a small problem with the size and the price, pointing out that the 150Gb version (which is every bit as fast or faster) cost about $50 more with rebates.

“Our experiences to date with the Western Digital WD740ADFD have been terrific. The recent updates to the drive have brought it into the same performance sector as the larger WD1500ADFD drive. We found the overall write performance and sustained transfer rates to be excellent and class leading in our test results. The drive even has improved thermal and acoustic characteristics over the other Raptors, although it’s certainly not competitive with other drives. Of course those drives do not have to contend with 10,000 RPM spindle speeds and firmware that is generally designed to extract the greatest amount of performance.”

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