Western Digital ships its new VelociRaptor 10,000 RPM SATA hard drives

WD®  announced today that it is now shipping WD VelociRaptor® 450 GB and 600 GB hard drives, the next generation of its 10,000 RPM SATA family of hard drives. The new WD VelociRaptor hard drive is designed for blade servers, high-performance PCs, Mac® computers, professional workstations, as well as 1U and 2U rack servers that require a balance of high performance and capacity. 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.

The most popular hard drive for high-performance enthusiasts who demand the ultimate SATA drive, the WD VelociRaptor hard drive 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. The WD VelociRaptor drive is also available in the IcePack™* enclosure, a 3.5-inch mounting frame with a built-in heat sink – a factory customization that fits the drive into a standard 3.5-inch system bay and keeps this powerful drive extra cool when installed in a high-performance desktop chassis and 3.5-inch HDD form factor enterprise chassis.

WD VelociRaptor 3.5-inch HDD

“WD is a leader in the performance and reliability of enterprise SATA hard drives,” said Tom McDorman, vice president and general manager of WD’s enterprise business unit. “Demand for performance combined with an increase in capacity continues to rise and WD is the leader in this category. WD customers can rely on the new WD VelociRaptor to deliver high performance under the harshest conditions, while continuing to keep user data safe.”

WD VelociRaptor 2.5-inch

Features of the new WD VelociRaptor hard drives include:

  • Killer speed- SATA 6 Gb/s interface and 32 MB cache enhance the next generation 10,000 RPM WD VelociRaptor making it up to 15% faster than the award-winning previous generation.
  • Monstrous capacity – WD VelociRaptor SATA drives are available in capacities up to 600 GB, double the capacity of the previous generation.
  • Rock-solid reliability – Designed and manufactured to mission-critical enterprise-class standards to provide enterprise reliability in high duty cycle environments. With 1.4 million hours MTBF, these drives have the highest available reliability rating on a high capacity SATA drive.
  • Ultra-cool operation – Consumes no more power than the previous generation WD VelociRaptor while offering double the capacity and higher performance.
  • IcePack mounting frame – The 2.5-inch WD VelociRaptor is enclosed in a backplane-ready 3.5-inch enterprise-class mounting frame with a built-in heat sink that keeps this powerful little drive extra cool when installed in high-performance desktop chassis.
  • 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 significantly less wear to the recording head and media as well as better drive protection in transit.
  • Environmentally conscious – In addition to being ROHS compliant, this generation of WD VelociRaptor is also a halogen-free design.

WD VelociRaptor 600 GB, SATA 6 Gb/s, 32 MB Cache, 10,000 RPM

Price and Availability

WD VelociRaptor (model WD4500HLHX and WD6000HLHX – 3.5-inch version with IcePack) hard drives are available now at select distributors and resellers. WD VelociRaptor 2.5-inch hard drives (model WD4500BLHX and WD6000BLHX) are under evaluation with OEM customers and will be available through select commercial distributors within this quarter. Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) for the WD VelociRaptor 450 GB (model WD4500HLHX) is $299 USD and the 600 GB (model WD6000HLHX) is $329 USD.

WD VelociRaptor

Specification:

Performance Specifications
Rotational Speed 10,000 RPM (nominal)
Buffer Size 32 MB
Average Latency 3.00 ms (nominal)
Load/unload Cycles 600,000 minimum
Seek Times
Read Seek Time 3.6 ms (average)
Write Seek Time 4.2 ms (average)
Track-To-Track Seek Time 0.4 ms (average)
Transfer Rates
Buffer To Host (Serial ATA) 6 Gb/s (Max)

Physical Specifications
Formatted Capacity 600,127 MB
Capacity 600 GB
Interface SATA 6 Gb/s
User Sectors Per Drive 1,172,123,568

Physical Dimensions
English
Height 1.028 Inches
Length 5.787 Inches
Width 4.00 Inches
Weight 1.08 Pounds
Metric
Height 26.1 mm
Length 147 mm
Width 101.6 mm
Weight 489 g

Environmental Specifications
Shock
Operating Shock (Read) 65G, 2 ms
Non-operating Shock 300G, 2 ms
Acoustics
Idle Mode 30 dBA (average)
Seek Mode 0 37 dBA (average)
Temperature (English)
Operating 41° F to 131° F
Non-operating -40° F to 158° F
Temperature (Metric)
Operating 5° C to 55° C
Non-operating -40° C to 70° C
Humidity
Operating 5-95% RH non-condensing
Non-operating 5-95% RH non-condensing
Altitude (English)
Operating -1,000 feet to 10,000 feet
Non-operating -1,000 feet to 40,000 feet
Altitude (Metric)
Operating -305M to 3,050M
Non-operating -305M to 12,200M
Vibration
Operating
Linear 20-300 Hz, 0.75G (0 to peak)
Random 10-300 Hz, 0.008 g? / Hz
Non-operating
Low Frequency 0.05 g?/Hz (10 to 300 Hz)
High Frequency 20-500 Hz, 4.0G (0 to peak)

Electrical Specifications
Current Requirements
12 VDC
Read/Write 320 mA
Idle 210 mA
Standby 5 mA
Sleep 5 mA
5 VDC
Read/Write 470 mA
Idle 360 mA
Standby 130 mA
Sleep 120 mA
Power Dissipation
Read/Write 6.20 Watts
Idle 4.30 Watts
Standby 0.70 Watts
Sleep 0.70 Watts

Source: WD