Western Digital Raptor WD1500ADFD 150GB Hard Drive Review

[Tyreal]

Today HardwareLogic looks at the newest pony in Western Digital's stable...the 150GB WD Raptor. Doubling not only the drives actual size (From 74GB to 150GB), but also the cache (from 8MB to 16MB). Western Digital has finally updates arguably the most popular hard drive of the past 2 years

Read the Full Review here:
http://hardwarelogic.com/news/119/AR...006-03-12.html

[gvblake22]

Although those Raptors are extremely fast, it is very hard to justify spending that kind of money on a HDD. I was captivated by the 74GB Raptor and bought one myself (with a great newegg rebate) and I have been extremely happy with it (althoug it did die after a year or so but WD replaced it in 3 days). Unlike some computer hardware upgrades, buying a 10,000rpm HDD really did translate into a noticeable real-world performance improvement. But I just can't see spending almost $300 on a 150GB HDD, even if it is a Raptor...

[Tyreal]

I feel pretty much the same way. Paying almost 3 dollars per GB is just too outrageous.

It would be cool if i got it for free or at a low price though...

[Capper]

Well, my enthusiasm for these drives really is tempered by the lack of the SATA 3.0 GB/s transfer standard.
In my opinion, within a year, drives that support SATA 2.5 standard will be almost as fast, at a fraction of the cost.
I completely agree these things are sweet, but no where near worth the $300 they are running....but thats how supply and demand work, if someone like me is willing to give them a shot and spend the money, they can charge whatever they want.

[gvblake22]

Originally Posted by Capper

Well, my enthusiasm for these drives really is tempered by the lack of the SATA 3.0 GB/s transfer standard.
In my opinion, within a year, drives that support SATA 2.5 standard will be almost as fast, at a fraction of the cost.

Well, that's in a year. A year in computer technology is practically a lifetime, lol. I'm sure when faster drives come out that can actually take advantage of 300MB/s, the cost of the Raptors (and all other drives) will have dropped a signifigant ammount.

Originally Posted by Capper

I completely agree these things are sweet, but no where near worth the $300 they are running....but thats how supply and demand work, if someone like me is willing to give them a shot and spend the money, they can charge whatever they want.

Indeed. But you can also argue that WD prettymuch has a monopoly with the 10,000rpm SATA drives available for common desktop use. Since they are the sole inventors and manufacturers of such devices at the moment, they can prettymuch do whatever they want...
However, I have been watching the price of the 74GB Raptor slowly drop in price every quarter or so. :)

[Capper]

HDD have alwways been the bottleneck in system performance. Once Vista hits the streets you should see a marked improvement in HDD perforamce.
If you take one ofgf these high quality 7200.9 drives like ones from Hitachi, Seagate, or WD...their 16MB cache and SATA 3.0GB/s transfer sopeeds are not that much behind these Raptors to justify the price

[Tyreal]

That was one of the factors i was thinking about when i was buying my Raptor. It was the smallest size but it was still a pretty penny.

Would it have better for me to go with a high capacity 16MB cache hard drive or a 10,000 RPM Raptor? I went with the raptor since I already had alot of bulk space.

[gvblake22]

Originally Posted by Capper

HDD have alwways been the bottleneck in system performance. Once Vista hits the streets you should see a marked improvement in HDD perforamce.

Most definately. I totally agree that HDD's are by far the weakest link in today's desktop computer hardware technology. But what is in Vista to make it improve HDD performance enough to push the 300MB/s envelope?

[Tyreal]

So this thing in vista... it will take advantage of my Raptors speed?

I'm guessing its a new file management system of some sorts.

[RangerXLT8]

Like bBlake said, HDD are the bottlneck in a system..... That being said for a person who spends alot of time on their PC doing anything, why not do it as fast a possible?--Raptors are the fastest HDD, and in RAID they are faster. MY raptors aren't the new latest 150gb ones, only being 36gb, 2 of them in RAID 0 is plenty of room for my OS\applications\games. Everything else that needs to be stored sits on some 7200 WD SATA drives. I think folks will agree with this.