Western Digital VelociRaptor WD3000BLFS

Western Digital VelociRaptor WD3000BLFS Model Number Capacity WD3000BLFS 300 GB Estimated Street Price (300 GB): $299 Encompassing three generations of releases, Western Digital's standout 10,000 RPM Raptor family has been warmly received by enthusiasts worldwide over the course of the last five years. Combining the best single-user performance money could buy with a relatively reasonable price, each Raptor release satiated enthusiasts with a marriage of increased capacity and over-the-top performance. Perhaps the largest complaints leveled against the series have been the large swaths of time separating each release.

Though WD rapidly followed up its initial 37 GB release with a significantly improved 74 GB model, almost two years separated the Raptor WD740GD and its successor, the Raptor WD1500ADFD. As the family's first native SATA design, the latter Raptor again stood as WD's performance-oriented offering for nearly sixteen months. In that time, terabyte behemoths hit the channel and have chipped away at and in some cases even surpassed the venerable third-generation Raptor in sheer performance. Its 150-gigabyte capacity also seemed more and more constricting as the months ticked by.

WD has finally addressed the issue and unveiled its fourth-generation design. Dubbed "VelociRaptor," this newest entry ups the family's flagship capacity to 300 gigabytes and introduces a host of fundamental changes. Though we suspect that much if not most of the Raptor's success has come from the enthusiast sector, WD has not forgotten its desire to see the Raptor penetrate the enterprise server market. In a nod to the emerging smaller form factor initiated by Seagate's Savvio design, WD has moved the Raptor series to a 2.5" chassis.

The majority of today's desktop machines still expect standard 3.5" drives. While some users seeking the ultimate in acoustic and thermal performance have taken to mounting notebook-oriented 2.5" designs into their home rigs, the consumer world remains a 3.5" landscape. Many readers have found out that desktop cases, 2.5" drives, and rails that convert such units to 3.5" form factors don't always get along. Screw holes frequently fail to line up and necessitate custom solutions such as drilling to get everything aligned.

WD has addressed the issue by outfitting initial shipments of the VelociRaptor in a custom 2.5" to 3.5" converter. Dubbed IcePAK, this aluminum chassis permits the drive to be mounted in any standard 3.5" bay. Though it's somewhat stylishly cut with heatsink-like fins, IcePAK's purpose is primarily form factor conversion, not heat distribution. It should be noted that an IcePAK-mounted VelociRaptor does not perfectly mimic a true 3.5" drive when it comes to rear-connection alignment; IcePAK drives won't work with the standard SATA/SAS backplanes found in many rack-mounted servers. Standard SATA cables, of course, work just fine. For enterprise use, the firm plans to ship VelociRaptors sans the 3.5" chassis.

The VelociRaptor's 2.5" design, as one would expect, incorporates two reduced-diameter platters packing 150 gigabytes each. The narrowed span leads to a manufacturer-claimed seek time of just 4.2 milliseconds, a 12% improvement over that of the WD1500ADFD.

Though a roomy 32-megabyte buffer accompanies some of today's terabyte drives, WD has chosen to stick with a more conservative 16 MB cache. In contrast to the 1.5 Gb/sec-equipped WD1500ADFD, the VelociRaptor represents the first iteration of the family to ship with a 3 Gb/sec SATA interface. Reflecting the series' continued enterprise-orientation, the WD3000BFLS ships with a claimed MTBF of 1.4 million hours and a 5-year warranty.

In the tests that follow, we'll pit an engineering sample of WD's VelociRaptor WD3000BFLS against the following drives: