Western Digital equips VelociRaptor HDDs with backplane connectors

helmutcheese

helmutcheese

helmutcheese

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Remember the issue with the SATA ports being in wrong place for server use on new VelociRaptors ?.

Well WD have fixed it in the newer versions. :)


QUOTED :


" Proud as a peacock, Western Digital has just told the unsuspecting world that it managed to breed a new type of VelociRaptor. Coming in 3.5-inch form factors, the new 150 and 300GB drives included in WD's offer work at 10,000 RPM (rotations per minute), have 16MB of cache and SATA 3.0 Gbps and that pretty much makes them very similar to the VelociRaptors already released. The special thing about the two new VelociRaptors is that they feature backplane connectors so as to make them usable in multi-drive systems.

"We designed the latest version of the WD VelociRaptor due to the increasing amount of systems that require a backplane mounting system. We have had overwhelming demand of our WD VelociRaptor as it provides enthusiasts with the computing speed and capacity they thirst for," said Tom McDorman, vice president and general manager of WD's enterprise solutions storage business unit. "The new WD VelociRaptor further demonstrates WD's commitment to the enthusiast and server market by delivering the greatest performance, compatibility, and reliability of all SATA hard drives currently on the market."

Said to have a 1.4 million hours MTBF (mean time before failure), the backplane 150 and 300GB VelociRaptors are now shipping. "



WD_VelociRaptor_backplane_HDD_01.jpg




WD_VelociRaptor_backplane_HDD_02.jpg




WD_VelociRaptor_backplane_HDD_03.jpg



http://www.tcmagazine.info/comments.php?shownews=21264&catid=2




You can see the Adapter screwed on here (The Red Part)



velociraptor-3.5.jpg




http://www.techreport.com/discussions.x/15303



:)
 
helmutcheese said:
[snip]...We have had overwhelming demand of our WD VelociRaptor as it provides enthusiasts with the computing speed and capacity they thirst for," said Tom McDorman, vice president and general manager of WD's enterprise solutions storage business unit....
Click to expand...

Overwhelming? I havent seen an overwhelming demand for them. When the original Raptors came out, everyone I knew that played PC games either had one or was about to get one.

The VelociRaptor on the other hand... Everyone is now getting a Sammy 1TB.

Anyhoo.. I much prefer the new heatsink / caddy, this should have been on the first release, the other one, with the offset connector placement should never have been signed off.
 
Everyone is now getting a Sammy 1TB.
Click to expand...

lol are we?

I've got a Sammy F1 1TB for my data drive but I'll never use a 7200rpm drive for my OS. They're just too slow. While theres a faster 10k or 15k alternative available I'll always go for those.
 
plus loads of 1tb f1's seem to be dying. Ppl will be moving to samsung f1 320gb's and WD 250/320GB RE3's for system drives over the next few weeks as they are same speed as 1tb f1 and the re3's are actually faster in seek and read/write, especially when raided, 195mb/sec raided!

BUT

ppl will also buy the 74GB Velociraptor, its the same speed as the 150gb and 300gb but only £94 which is pretty cheap really.
 
If, as slackworth claims, the 74GB drives are short stroked 150s, the avg reads/writes/access times will be higher on the 74GB model.
 
probedb said:
But why? Having a 1TB drive as your OS drive is just plain daft IMO.
Click to expand...

I was referring to people I speak to, in my statement. my bad.

However, I completely agree. It more down to the fact that you can get a 1TB drive for under £100 and have transfer speeds that are similar to those of the raptors. Seek times aside, most people will see the value side of things and stick one of those in.

When WD brought out the Raptors, they had a captive market, SCSI was pretty much dead on the desktop, normal drives (7.2k) were a lot slower, so the gain was more quantifiable for a 'reasonably' justified cost.

Most people I speak to about hardware these days do not think the Raptors / Veloci's are worth a go.

Those I know who are more performance orientated have gone the SAS route, more flexible, more ports and more performance. Yes, it's more expensive, but no more than it was a few years ago when we were all buying Adaptec 2940 UW cards with 36GB 10k SCSI disks.

:)
 
Thats just it though, the Sammy transfer speeds are considerably slower than the Raptors. Just look at the differences between the two drives: http://www.storagereview.com/php/be...&numDrives=1&devID_0=366&devID_1=361&devCnt=2

I personally think the Samsung F1's are awesome data drives, but they are still too sluggish to use as an OS drive with all its random accessing and swap files. That being said I've also been giving serious thought to the SAS route...
 
costs £12 more for the 300gb version and about £4 for the 74gb and 150gb versions.

I presume the new heatsink + backplate allows the drive to be pushed into servers so that it connects, like with sata 2.5" laptop drives being pushed into laptops?

btw, you should change this info for the 2.5" versions: "NOTE: NOT SUITABLE FOR USE IN LAPTOPS" to: "NOTE: NOT SUITABLE FOR USE IN LAPTOPS DUE TO BEING 15MM TALL" as some laptops may have space for 15mm and users may just thing that the connectors arent right for laptops.

Do you know if they slowed down these 2.5" versions so that they produce less heat? Also does the new heatsinks for the 3.5" versions produce less vibration so that the drive is quieter?

Have the versions with the old heatsink been discontinued now as i see you have removed the 74+150gb versions with the old heatsink and different model number?
 
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