It's
been nearly
two years since the debut of the 300GB Western Digital
Velociraptor. Since that time, SSDs have continued to lower in price
and have become the "go to" storage device for hardcore
gamers.
We
first
brought you info on the new Velociraptors back in January, but
today Western Digital is finally ready to spill the beans on the new
Velociraptor VR200M series. The new drives boast a 10,000 rpm spindle
speed and can be had in 450GB and 600GB capacities.
The
drives feature a 2.5" form-factor (albeit with a 15 mm height,
so don't even think about trying to fit this into an average notebook
computer). Most drives, however, will come with the IcePAK heatsink
which allows the Velociraptors to fit into a 3.5" drive bay.
As
with most new HDDs and SSDs announced today, the new Velociraptor
VR200M series support the SATA 6Gb/sec standard. The new drives also
feature a 32MB cache and a 200GB/platter.
"WD
is a leader in the performance and reliability of enterprise SATA
hard drives," said Western Digital's Tom McDorman. "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."
The
450 and 600GB Velociraptors have an MSRP of $299 and $329
respectively -- the drives also come with a five-year warranty.
Anand
Shimpi has already reviewed
the new Velociraptors and argues that while these are blazing
fast hard drives, a large 7,200 rpm HDD plus an SSD boot drive would
probably be the faster solution for most people.
