Western Digital Raptor WD1500

Western Digital Raptor WD1500 Model Number Capacity WD1500ADFD ("Raptor 150") 150 GB WD1500AHFD ("Raptor X") 150 GB Lowest Real-Time Price (150 GB): Following the release of the world's first 10,000 RPM hard drive, Seagate's Cheetah 4LP, enthusiasts around the globe speculated for years about the potential offered by a 10,000 RPM ATA drive. Though the performance advantages offered by the SCSI-equipped 10K RPM screamers were undeniable, the barrier to entry for those simply seeking top-flight single-user performance remained too high. SCSI's high cost per gigabyte combined with the need for a relatively expensive controller placed it out of reach for all but, well, the markets Seagate and others were targeting - high-performance enterprise server needs. The years that followed witnessed continued evolution in the industry. SCSI units marched onwards to 15,000 RPM, ATA drives increased their capacity advantage over SCSI units, and FDB motors reduced idle noises across the board. Localized non-server access patterns persisted in marginalizing once-dominant physical performance metrics and placed more importance on buffer size and firmware code. As memories of Western Digital's ill-fated SCSI division slowly faded away, the Lake Forest-based firm eyed a 10,000 RPM ATA design as a potential competitive advantage. Unlike the other major players, WD had no high-margin SCSI line to protect, and as a result had nothing to lose and everything to gain should 10K RPM ATA meet success.

SATA's emergence finally drove WD to the plate with a February 2003 announcement of the Raptor WD360GD, a drive that combined a spindle speed previously found only in enterprise-oriented products with the consumer-friendly SATA interface. The first Raptor was a modest, single-platter design that topped out at 36 gigabytes, considered somewhat small even back then. Nonetheless, the design demonstrated that speedy mechanics freed from the shackles of the high-overhead SCSI bus had much to offer when it came to single-user performance. The Raptor held its own when compared to SCSI titans such as Maxtor's Atlas 10K IV and Fujitsu's MAP3147.

SCSI drives, however, absolutely pummeled the WD360GD when it came to the drive's ostensible target market- servers. In particular, the Raptor's lack of command queuing placed the unit at a severe disadvantage when contrasted with SCSI drives that featured mature tagged command queuing (TCQ) implementations. When it brought (some would say "rushed") the WD360GD to the market, Western Digital was already hard at work on a successor.

WD announced the Raptor WD740GD in September 2003, a scant seven months after the WD360GD's introduction. This newer model addressed the deficiencies of the initial version, most notably by introducing another platter to yield a more respectable 74-gigabyte capacity. FDB motors were also brought to the table, reducing the WD740GD's idle noise floor to a level found in the quietest of SATA drives. Finally, the newer Raptor incorporated ATA-4 tagged command queuing, a seldom used, firmware-level reordering system geared to shore up the original Raptor's poor server performance.

The Raptor WD740GD's tweaks were not subtle... indeed, they elevated the drive's performance to a new level, one that found WD's scrappy contender duking it out with Maxtor's mighty Atlas 15K as the fastest drive for non-server use, regardless of spindle speed, interface, or price. On the multi-user front, however, the WD740GD remained hit-or-miss. The Raptor's tagged command queuing abilities indeed assisted the drive when it came to I/O concurrency. WD's TCQ execution, however, failed to scale as well as those found in SCSI drives, especially when it came to the lower queue depths under which most real-world servers operate. The drive's efforts were further hampered by a relative dearth of SATA controllers that bothered to support an old, legacy feature... only a handful of offerings from Silicon Image, Promise, HighPoint, and upstart Pacific Digital hit the market.

Even so, the Raptor's success with the relatively niche but very vocal DIY/enthusiast/gamer market was hard to ignore. Power users galore snatched up the only 10,000 RPM SATA drive around and WD watched as its "serious enterprise drive" became the centerpiece of many a hot-rod rig. As the months rolled by, the Raptor continued to hold its own against the latest SATA and SCSI drives to hit the channel. Further, like most drives, the WD740GD has quietly received tweaks and revisions here and there. The latest iteration, the WD740GD-00FLC0, boasts improvements of up to 14% in its single-user scores.

For nearly two years, however, the Raptor's flagship capacity has stubbornly stood at 74 gigabytes. As SATA drives such as Hitachi's enormous (not to mention blazingly fast) Deskstar 7K500 and Western Digital's own Caviar WD4000KD arrived, users willing to spend some change for premium SATA storage found themselves in an unusual quandary - spring for the massive 400-500 GB capacity offered by today's huge units or go for the slight speed advantage still maintained by the Raptor while (rather ironically) saving a few bucks?

Readers have wondered for some time whether the esteemed Raptor line would receive a capacity upgrade or whether the series, as lauded as it was by the enthusiast community, would eventually fade away and remain only in fond memories.

Let the speculation end... WD's third-generation Raptor is here!