Western Digital's New VelociRaptor VR200M: 10K RPM at 450GB and 600GB
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 6, 2010 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
The Contenders & The Test
To make these graphs legible I've left out the SSDs, but note that these are the same benchmarks we use for our SSD reviews. If you want to compare, head on over to our SSD Bench database.
I've included the latest 6Gbps drives from Western Digital and Seagate, the Caviar Black and the Barracuda XT. Both are TB-class drives that are the fastest 7200 RPM offerings you can buy for a desktop today.
I've also included the previous generation 300GB VelociRaptor and the old 150GB Raptor to give you an idea of how far things have come if you're still holding on to one of those old drives.
For you notebook users I ran tests on a Seagate Momentus 5400.6 drive. It's not fast compared to a desktop drive but it gives you an idea of the performance difference that exists between 2.5" and 3.5" drives.
Finally I included an older Seagate Barracuda ES to give you a reference point if you have a 7200 RPM drive that's a few years old.
| CPU | Intel Core i7 965 running at 3.2GHz (Turbo & EIST Disabled) |
| Motherboard: | Intel DX58SO (Intel X58) |
| Chipset: | Intel X58 + Marvell SATA 6Gbps PCIe |
| Chipset Drivers: | Intel 9.1.1.1015 + Intel IMSM 8.9 |
| Memory: | Qimonda DDR3-1333 4 x 1GB (7-7-7-20) |
| Video Card: | eVGA GeForce GTX 285 |
| Video Drivers: | NVIDIA ForceWare 190.38 64-bit |
| Desktop Resolution: | 1920 x 1200 |
| OS: | Windows 7 x64 |
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Makaveli - Tuesday, April 6, 2010 - link
I really think they should have gone with 300GB's platters dropped the 450GB model and release just a single platter 300GB's model and 2 platter 600GB model. Sell the 300GB model for $199 and the 600GB model for $299.I'm already using Intel SSD + 1TB Black for storage so I won't be buying one, raptors are dead to me!
efeman - Tuesday, April 6, 2010 - link
I have two VR150's in RAID-0. Is there any chance you could compare performance of the new VR's to that (or two VR300's, of course).Hacp - Tuesday, April 6, 2010 - link
Dear Anand,It would be helpful if you had some random latency tests, because that is what makes mechanical drives so horrible. Also, would be helpful if you did some short stroked benchmarks with this drive. Finally, I would like to compare it to an SSD drive. I know you are short on time but it would really make the review more interesting. Keep up the good work.
Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, April 6, 2010 - link
The random tests actually give you latency, just represented in MB/s instead of ms.For example:
4KB random write test, 3 outstanding IOs:
VR200M got 1.9MB/s average write speed
That's 1945.6 KB/s (1.9MB/s * 1024KB/MB), which is 486.4 IOPS (1945.6KB/s / 4KB/IOP). That gives us IOs per second, or if we take the inverse we get seconds per IO: 2.05ms. Now since we've got 3 outstanding IOs that's 3 x 2.05ms or 6.16ms.
Latency is represented, just in the form of MB/s :)
Take care,
Anand
AstroGuardian - Tuesday, April 6, 2010 - link
Anand, please if you feel like telling us; you mentioned you have 1 x SSD and 2 x 1Tb drives in you personal computer in RAID1. What kind of 1Tb drives did you put there?Just a curiosity. I would like to know what your choice was...
Cheers
Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, April 6, 2010 - link
I've got a pair of old Hitachi 1TB HDT721010SLA360 drives in my machine. I just used them because I had them laying around with no other purpose :)Take care,
Anand
pjconoso - Tuesday, April 6, 2010 - link
Are you actually using them? :) I could use a couple of those - 'wouldn't mind if they're slow as hell, lol.AstroGuardian - Wednesday, April 7, 2010 - link
Naaah dude, those drives are just great. We have plenty of those here in Europe. I have seen many defective Seagates, Spinpoints, few WDs but i have never seen a dead Hitachi (except for one of mine which i sent to death myself one angry morning...).Great choice Anand, but i still kind a think you chose those drives for a reason (what could that be lol) and not just because they were laying around. Haha....
strikeback03 - Thursday, April 8, 2010 - link
We have had one Hitachi, a Maxtor, a few Seagates, and a bunch of Samsung Drives die here at work.AstroGuardian - Thursday, April 8, 2010 - link
Haha, there you go. The Samsungs die every day. I have no idea what their issues are, especially those F3 - RAID Class drives. About the Maxtor i think it's time has come to pass away don't you think? Hehe