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Topic: Hardware

Western Digital refreshes VelociRaptor hard drive line, but can it compete against SSDs?

Summary: WD has finally refreshed the VelociRaptor to compete with the SSD threat, bumping its maximum storage size to 1TB and improving its performance. But should you buy it or a solid-state drive?

Sean Portnoy

By for Laptops & Desktops |

Western Digital positioned the VelociRaptor as the ultimate hard drive for performance-oriented desktop builders, with the drives spinning at 10,000rpm. But the company hadn't updated the line in a couple of years, during which time solid-state drives have flooded the market with their speed and ever-growing capacities.

WD has finally refreshed the VelociRaptor to compete with the SSD threat, bumping its maximum storage size to 1TB and tweaking its performance. In particular, it's doubled its cache from 32MB to 64MB and improved its platter density. The result, according to testing by Anandtech, is a drive that is far faster than other desktop hard drives.

However, it still can't compare to even an entry-level SSD in terms of random write operations, though it's much more competitive when it comes to sequential read/write speed. Of course, mechanical drives also remain more reliable in general than SSDs, while solid-state drives consume less power.

The new VelociRaptor costs $319.99 for the 1TB version, with the 500GB version running $209.99 and the 250GB version priced at $159.99. That's still less per-gigabyte than the price of an SSD, but Anandtech still doesn't recommend the VelociRaptor as your primary drive because of the performance advantage and increased affordability of SSDs, especially if you're looking for lower capacities.

Even with the performance updates, does the VelociRaptor stand a chance against today's SSDs? Will you buy one for your next build? Let us know in the Comments section.

Topic: Hardware

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12 comments
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  • SSDs lose on two critical factors

    Reliability and capacity. Probably longevity as well.

    Don't get me wrong, I *love* the idea of no moving parts and the raw speed, but until they become as reliable as RAM (and as long lasting) and until they start tipping the scales in the 1+ TB range for under $500, I'm not interested.
    wolf_z
    Reply Vote

  • Reliability vs. durability?

    This is a common question that comes up with SSD's vs. hard drives. Hard drives might be more reliable under ideal conditions, but how durable are they when you factor in bumps from mobility or vibration which can happen even in the most seemingly immobile chassis? Both WD and Seagate say that if vibration is a worry, switch to SAS, because they are the only drives capable of working through vibration from multi-drive setups.

    Also, I have yet to see Velociraptors last more than a couple of years in a RAID array. In every scenario I've seen, at least one drive failed in less than 2 years, breaking the array. When WD drive prices were cheaper, I used to recommend a pair of enterprise SATA drives in RAID 0 over a single Velociraptor drive because you get better performance and bigger storage for less money. From my own experiences (from customers), I would never recommend Raptor/Velociraptors in RAID 0. Nowadays, I just recommend an SSD, caching SSD setup using one of those Highpoint cards or the integrated Intel functionality, or a hybrid hard drive like the Barracuda XT's.
    Joe_Raby
    Reply Vote

    • We're going through our first replacement round of SSDs ...

      Two years after our switchover to SSDs for high-throughput servers, we are starting to see a sharp upturn in failures. It hasn't got to the point of switching back to conventional drives, but it's a big concern. So I don't think there is a big differentiation in failure rates between velociraptors and SSDs at this point.
      terry flores
      Reply Vote

  • Price, price, price!

    It's as simple as that. That drive is around 3 GB per dollar, while even the crappiest SSD is 1:1. Make that 2 dollars per GB if you actually want a good SSD. I put a 128 GB SSD in my desktop and I love it, but I could have traded it for that 1TB Velociraptor for that price. Performance or storage. Pick one. (For the record, I went both like a lot of people. Not a velociraptor, but I can see the advantage.)

    God I love my SSD though.
    Aerowind
    Reply Vote

  • On price they can

    Paying an average wage of less than 6 USD per Thai employee, they should at least be able to win it on price. Of course it is much more fashionable to refer to Foxconn and China, but they pay their people sooooo much more.
    rhon@...
    Reply Vote

  • use both

    I'll be buying the 500 GB to run as a second drive to store games on. I'm currently running two SSDs, one for OS and one for games but i need more storage. The Raptior should fill that a nice price point.
    Claud.Cutler@...
    Reply Vote

  • HDs not much better durability than SSDs

    My experience with HDs (Western Digital) is that current cheap drives are not durable and have an failure rate that you pay for if you don't back up regularly. Forum discussions disprove the fact that most people back up regularly or at all.

    I am building a system now which includes an Intel SSD with a 5-year warranty. Do I believe the drive will last 5-years? I'll image the OS and programs frequently for the expected demise of that "not cheap" Intel logo and warranty.
    James-SantaBarbara
    Reply Vote

    • Key words: Cheap Drives

      But if an SSD has the SAME reliability that a cheap drive has, what does that tell you??

      You are paying a ridiculous premium for not even 5% of the memory you can get for the same price/reliability. Only to get a boost in boot speed that is in reality insignificant in the total scheme.
      wackoae
      Reply Vote

  • Why are we wasting time with direct comparisons?

    I cannot understand the penchant that the technology press and the user base has for comparing solid state with HDD on a direct compare basis. I agree that it is a valid comparison for purely theoretical considerations but any serious system architecture consideration will inevitably gravitate to a combination of solid state and rotating magnetic memory on any device other than hand held mobile and limited purpose tablets.
    simplifried
    Reply Vote

  • HDD + SSD + Dataplex

    HDD's offer High Density and Low Cost.
    SSD's offer High Performance and High Cost.
    The most efficient solution is to use a low capacity (~32GB-64GG) SSD as a "cache" for your existing "high-capacity" HDD. That combination offers high-capacity, high-performance, incremental cost, and minimal integration hassle.

    Examples of include: Crucial Adrenaline, Corsair Accelerator, and OCZ Synapse.

    All of these offer significant advantages over other typical options, like: "boot drive", "hdd only", and "SSD only"

    Its pretty obvious, just a matter of time for general awareness to catch up...
    mailman65er
    Reply Vote

  • so why don't they spin at 15,000 rpm??

    there's a lot of scsi drives that do.
    sparkle farkle
    Reply Vote

    • I am guessing...

      I am guessing that at 15,000 RPM, they will be more expensive to manufacture and/or probably be less reliable. You need some really fine tolerances for that.

      Speed, Quality, Price: Pick any two. (Sometimes only one...)
      michaellashinsky@...
      Reply Vote
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