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
Power Consumption
Western Digital promised that the new VelociRaptor would use no more power than its predecessor. To find out we measured the current going to the drive across all voltage rails and determined total power consumption at the drive level in both idle and while performing our 2MB sequential write test:
Power consumption did go up by 4.3% at idle, but hardly anything to complain about. More performance at roughly the same power isn't a bad thing. Do pay attention to how much more power the larger 3.5" drives consume. This isn't really an issue on the desktop, but in a server with tons of spindles it quickly adds up.
Load power is a similar story. The new drive uses a bit more than the old one, but still far less than any 7200 RPM 3.5" drive.
Noise
At 10,000 RPM these things are going to be louder than your standard 3.5" desktop hard drive. To find out how loud I put a sound meter 1" away from the front of the drive and measured pressure at both idle and while performing a torture 4K random write test. The torture test basically keeps the drive in constant seek mode so it's a good indication of how loud the drive will be when it's really crunching away.
Note that the system these drives are connected to is my standard SSD testbed, which is a fairly high end desktop that isn't optimized for noise. The decibel readings may be high (particularly because of the 1" distance they were taken at) but they will give you an accurate comparison of which drives will be the loudest.
Obviously these 10K RPM drives are loud when they're accessed. The new VR is not much louder than the old one, but compared to a newer 7200 RPM drive they are noticeably louder when seeking. At idle or when performing sequential operations the gap is far narrower, but under load it's pronounced. These drives have never been for silent PCs.
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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