150GB & 300GB VelociRaptors Get SATA 6 Gbps, Larger Cache
by Saumitra Bhagwat on July 28, 2011 10:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Western Digital
- HDDs
- VelociRaptor
While SSDs are all the rage these days, Western Digital is still making headway on their 10,000RPM VelociRaptors. The drives come in 150GB, 300GB, 450GB and 600GB capacities in both 2.5” and 3.5” form factors. However, until recently only the 450GB and 600GB variants were available with SATA 6 Gbps and a larger 32MB cache.
But it seems Western Digital has showered some love on the 150GB and 300GB variants, bringing them up to speed with their larger capacity siblings. The new models are now listed on WD’s website here. No word on Stateside pricing or availability yet, but it might be reasonable to expect a slight price bump.
A quick look at some online retailers still shows the older SKUs (WD1500HLFS, WD3000HLFS) with SATA II and 16MB cache going for about $119.99 and $149.99 respectively. Although SSDs have become more affordable over the years, from a pure performance per dollar standpoint, these Velociraptors are still hard to beat.
Here are the new SKUs.
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antef - Thursday, July 28, 2011 - link
Why are all these "pipeline" posts showing up in the RSS feed all of a sudden. It used to only show front page articles.ImSpartacus - Thursday, July 28, 2011 - link
I bet Anandtech wants to get a decent daily news thing going so they can let go of the politically charged Dailytech.StickyIcky - Thursday, July 28, 2011 - link
God I really hope so.Wolfpup - Thursday, July 28, 2011 - link
Yeah, isn't it always right wing wackiness, that seems to not fit with...well, tech or Anandtech or anything, really.At any rate, I like knowing about stuff like this. I mean what tech person isn't interested in developments like this, even if they personally aren't interested?
I do have to sort of wonder what the point of faster SATA is on these though beyond marketing...can these actually saturate the bus? I doubt it save for transfers from the cache.
Hey, my Momentus XT has a 32MB cache too :) (Mobile version)
johnsonx - Thursday, July 28, 2011 - link
right wing wackiness? how do you get that from dailytech? politically, dailytech is left wing drivel.Solandri - Thursday, July 28, 2011 - link
The articles tend towards left-wing. The comments tend towards right-wing.And yeah, I don't see much point of putting these on a 6 Gbps bus when they couldn't even saturate 3 Gbps SATA. They're probably just doing it because they'll save some money using the same parts across all their drives.
Wierdo - Thursday, July 28, 2011 - link
I dunno, to me DT is clearly right-wing, with some center every now and then.The readers, on the other hand, seem to be predominantly far right or extremist right, with the exception of some voice of protest sprinkled in between.
Good example would be to look up their coverage on the Norway gunner, the posts there are quite disturbing, some even sounding like the gunman involved in the massacre.
Spazweasel - Thursday, July 28, 2011 - link
DT not dominated by "left" stupidity or "right" stupidity. It's just plain stupidity that rules the day, from most of the article posters (who's "references" are only other DT articles, not primary external sources) and the mass of idiots fanboying their favorite phone/operating system/open source software/whatever.And yeah, Anandtech loses credibility because it profits by pandering to the idiots on DT. Anand himself knows very well that DT is a cesspool no better than the National Enquirer, but nothing is done to clean it up. Dollars talk, I guess.
rangerdavid - Thursday, July 28, 2011 - link
I wholeheartedly agree. I've always wondered why Anandtech would continue to partner with them. There have to be better.Also, I'd love to see the spec's on these. Does anyone post, say sequential read/write speeds vs. cost/per/gig? That would be interesting.
DanNeely - Friday, July 29, 2011 - link
Probably inertia. DT started when an Anandtech writer left so he could write about rumors instead of being bound by the NDAs that AT had signed.