When it comes to gaming hard drives there really has only been one. The Raptor series from Western Digital has dominated the market for some time now. Their most recent Raptor is the 300Gb 10k RPM Velociraptor may be a little aged at over 1 1/2 years but still is a force to be reckoned with. Today I have the chance to see how the Velociraptor performs against other solutions including the SAS drives we have tested in the past and SSD's. Will the top name in gaming hard drives still hold its weight?
Product Name: Western Digital Velociraptor
Review Sample Provided by: Western Digital
Review by: Wes
Pictures by: Wes
Specifications
Performance Specifications |
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Rotational Speed | 10,000 RPM (nominal) |
Buffer Size | 16 MB |
Average Latency | 3.00 ms (nominal) |
Load/unload Cycles | 50,000 minimum |
Seek Times |
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Read Seek Time | 4.2 ms |
Write Seek Time | 4.7 ms (average) |
Track-To-Track Seek Time | 0.7 ms (average) |
Transfer Rates |
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Buffer To Host (Serial ATA) | 3 Gb/s (Max) |
Physical Specifications |
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Formatted Capacity | 300,069 MB |
Capacity | 300 GB |
Interface | SATA 3 Gb/s |
User Sectors Per Drive | 586,072,368 |
Physical Dimensions |
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Height | 1.028 Inches |
Length | 5.787 Inches |
Width | 4.00 Inches |
Weight | 1.08 Pounds |
Environmental Specifications |
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Shock |
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Operating Shock (Read) | 65G, 2 ms |
Non-operating Shock | 300G, 2 ms |
Acoustics |
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Idle Mode | 29 dBA (average) |
Seek Mode 0 | 36 dBA (average) |
Temperature |
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Operating | 41° F to 131° F |
Non-operating | -40° F to 158° F |
Humidity |
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Operating | 5-95% RH non-condensing |
Non-operating | 5-95% RH non-condensing |
Altitude |
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Operating | -1,000 feet to 10,000 feet |
Non-operating | -1,000 feet to 40,000 feet |
Vibration |
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Operating |
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Linear | 20-300 Hz, 0.75G (0 to peak) |
Random | 10-300 Hz, 0.008 g² / Hz |
Non-operating |
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Low Frequency | 0.05 g²/Hz (10 to 300 Hz) |
High Frequency | 20-500 Hz, 4.0G (0 to peak) |
Electrical Specifications |
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Current Requirements |
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12 VDC |
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Read/Write | 225 mA |
Idle | 200 mA |
Standby | 6 mA |
Sleep | 6 mA |
5 VDC |
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Read/Write | 675 mA |
Idle | 425 mA |
Standby | 70 mA |
Sleep | 70 mA |
Power Dissipation |
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Read/Write | 6.08 Watts |
Idle | 4.53 Watts |
Standby | 0.42 Watts |
Sleep | 0.42 Watts |
As used for storage capacity, one megabyte (MB) = one million bytes, one gigabyte (GB) = one billion bytes, and one terabyte (TB) = one trillion bytes. Total accessible capacity varies depending on operating environment. As used for buffer or cache, one megabyte (MB) = 1,048,576 bytes. As used for transfer rate or interface, megabyte per second (MB/s) = one million bytes per second, megabit per second (Mb/s) = one million bits per second, and gigabit per second (Gb/s) = one billion bits per second |
Test Rig
Cooler Master Sniper Case Intel 920 i7 CPU12 gigs of Cruicial Ballistix Ram (two triple channel kits, one red and one blue)
EVGA Classified
Two Saphire 4870’s in CrossfireLSISAS3442E-R SAS controller card
Noctua NH-U12P 1366 special edition
Two Samsung Sata DVD burners Cooler Master Ultimate 1100Watt power supply
Installation
Installing the Velociraptor went extremely simple due to the backplane readiness of the WD3000HLFS model. It installed into my IcyDock hotswap without any problems. If you are looking to install the Velociraptor into any enclosure or case with a built in backplane be sure to avoid the WD3000GLFS model. Surprisingly the IcePack mounting frame didn't cause any conflicts during the installation. Performance Putting the Velociraptor against a few drives (RaptorX, Savvio 10k2, Savvio 15k2, Seagate 1.5Tb, Crucial M225 SSD) to get an idea of its performance using HDtune just as we have in the past. Here are the results.
Obviously the Velociraptor didnt outperform the SSD or a hard drive that runs at 15k RPM but at 124.9 MB/sec it wasn't that far off from the 156.0 MB/sec of the Savvio 15k.2. When compared to the Savvio 10k.2 they are almost a dead match, not bad considering the matching RPM and the Velociraptor having twice the storage space for the same price. Where I was a little concerned was when comparing the results of the Velociraptor to the 1.5Tb 7200RPM drive. The transfer rate of the 1.5TB drive was actually higher than the Velociraptor, where it dominated was the all important Access time besting the 15.4 ms of the 1.5TB drive with a 7ms flat time. Something else to point out is the low temperatures the IcePack mounting frame afforded the Velociraptor. Not only does it adapt the 2.5 inch drive to fit in 3.5 inch drive bays and enclosures. But it also kept the hard drive nice and cool, a considerable improvement over our older RaptorX
Overall
So after putting the Velociraptor to the test against some of the fastest drives available what do I think? What was once the top dog is now looking aged, when compared to SSD's and super fast enterprise class drives. That really wasn't a surprise, it was the performance of the larger drives that surprised me. Frankly it was uncomfortably close considering the 1.5tb drives run for less and hold a lot more. The Velociraptor would still be the best choice when considering the price/performance with the other high speed drives, but if you are on a limited budget you're going to find the better value sticking with the cheaper large drives. Of course when you do that you give up that great access time that helps load everything so quickly. My suggestion if you're looking to pick up a fast hard drive but can't afford to step up to the SSD's is to check out the Velociraptor. It may not be the top dog anymore but it still can hold its own.