WD velociraptor. It's nothing if not different

[LiamC]

A 2.5" 10K SATA drive in a 3.5" heatsink :eekers:

http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/14583

..."The VelociRaptor offers excellent performance across a wide range of applications, but its most spectacular showing was easily with IOMeter's multi-user workloads. These workloads don't simulate typical desktop environments, of course, but they're the most demanding tests we run. And they make a heck of a case for an enterprise derivative of the VelociRaptor."...

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?type=expert&aid=548&pid=2

 

[timwhit]

There's some discussion about that here.

 

[Bozo]

Not a "Review" as such, but some of the pictures show some detail.

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTQ5MCwxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

Bozo :joker:

 

[sechs]

So, should we welcome Western Digital to the previous generation of 10k drives, and congratulate them on making such a nice drive adapter?

 

[LunarMist]

A healthy performance increase was observed compared to the previous generation. http://www.storagereview.com/WD3000BLFS.sr?page=0,2

 

[LunarMist]

How difficult is it to remove that heatsink?

 

[sechs]

I bet i could do it with a hammer and a blowtorch.

 

[ddrueding]

I strongly suspect it is just screwed on. I haven't seen it, but to do otherwise would be massively stupid.... <teasing Merc to comment>

 

[Fushigi]

The product sheet says:
IcePack™ Mounting Frame – The 2.5-inch WD VelociRaptor is enclosed in a
3.5-inch mounting frame with a built-in heat sink that keeps this powerful little drive
extra cool when installed in a 3.5-inch drive bay.

Which implies the tray can be removed. In the specs section:
Form factor 3.5-inch*

*A 2.5-inch drive in a 3.5-inch IcePack heat sink mounting frame.

 

[ddrueding]

Confirmed. Pictures included.

 

[LunarMist]

Available now. Where?

 

[timwhit]

Available now. Where?

Here.

 

[LunarMist]

In stock??? I'm on the road for a while starting next week, so maybe I'll try after the Labor Day weekend.

 

[timwhit]

In stock??? I'm on the road for a while starting next week, so maybe I'll try after the Labor Day weekend.

I didn't check that deeply, but it doesn't look like it. Looks like you'll have to wait a bit still. You could put in an order on one of those places, at least you will be "guaranteed" one when they do get stock.

 

[LunarMist]

Prices are higher than the WD expected retail, WTF?

 

[ddrueding]

Perhaps I spoke too soon about it holding off the SSDs; they are now cheaper.

 

[LunarMist]

Nothing yet. :frowner:

 

[LunarMist]

The drive finally hit the shelves last week. I'll order one in a week or so after returning to the real world.

 

[sechs]

Let us know if it really holds doors well. Might have a crochet a cover for it, though....

 

[LunarMist]

Huh, what doors and crochet?

Does anyone know where to find the retail drive?

 

[Bozo]

WD hard drives make great door stops.
He will have to crochet (crow-shay) a cover for it.

Bozo :joker:

 

[paugie]

Does anyone know where to find the retail drive?

Holding my breath. Waiting for Mercutio to start posting shortly.

 

[Stereodude]

This could be interesting:

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/06/06/western-digital-working-on-20-000-rpm-raptor/1

 

[ddrueding]

Sweet. Competition rules. I'll buy one.

 

[LunarMist]

WD hard drives make great door stops.
He will have to crochet (crow-shay) a cover for it.

Bozo :joker:

Is there a problem with some WD drives? I have ~9 and they are fine.

 

[Bozo]

Where's Mercutio when you need him...
I use WD drives almost exclusively. I've had fewer problems with them , percentage wise, than any other brand.
Some here have had different results.

Bozo :joker:

 

[Fushigi]

I use whatever offers the best capacity/dollar at the moment. At the 500GB size I've 3 Samsungs. But I also have a Seagate 750GB and a Fujitsu 80GB notebook drive (in a desktop). Those SATA drives are in my home machines/Folding farm. My work notebooks have an Hitachi and a Seagate.

I've decommissioned my PATA drives, which were a mix of Samsung, Maxtor, WD, etc. They all still work but I've moved off that connection type.

And the servers I manage have collectively 96 15K Seagates. We've lost a couple, but few enough that the MTBF holds true.

 

[LunarMist]

I have over 20TB of storage and really don't keep track of all the brands. Here are several drives in use now. For some reason the 1TB Samsung F1 thinks it is external and does not report info.

 

[ddrueding]

I see a 4GB iRAM in there...sweet.

 

[Bozo]

Did I see somewhere that WD is developing a 20,000RPM Velociraptor?

Cool

Bozo :joker:

 

[sechs]

Yeah. It'll be a 800MB, 1-platter design.

MSRP, $AFOOLANDHISMONEY

 

[paugie]

Yeah. It'll be a 800MB, 1-platter design.

MSRP, $AFOOLANDHISMONEY

Yeah, at less than 1 Gb, anybody who buys it would be a fool, never mind his money.
I wonder how much WD would be short-stroking the thing? Or is it supposed to be 800Gb.

 

[LunarMist]

20K RPM - WTF? The WD3000GLFS has just recently become available. The 300GB is worthless for me, but there is no single-platter model.

 

[ddrueding]

20K RPM - WTF? The WD3000GLFS has just recently become available. The 300GB is worthless for me, but there is no single-platter model.

The return is ridiculously far from linear, 20k won't actually get you that much.

 

[LunarMist]

I see a 4GB iRAM in there...sweet.

Unfortunately the backup battery ruptured last summer, and I could not find a replacement. Therefore the drive needs to be reinitialized and formatted every time I work on the computer or when there is an extended power failure.

 

[ddrueding]

Unfortunately the backup battery ruptured last summer, and I could not find a replacement. Therefore the drive needs to be reinitialized and formatted every time I work on the computer or when there is an extended power failure.

From when I was looking, it seemed to be the same as a basic cordless phone battery (plug and everything). If you include some images, I could probably find one for you. There was also a few people who modded it to use an external DC brick rigged to a UPS.

 

[LunarMist]

From when I was looking, it seemed to be the same as a basic cordless phone battery (plug and everything). If you include some images, I could probably find one for you. There was also a few people who modded it to use an external DC brick rigged to a UPS.

There are three contacts for the single-cell battery. Of course three contact are not necessary for charging. I suspect that the other contact is just used to indicate to the charger whether a battery is present. My battery is completely kaput (3 contacts open to wrsp to each other) so I don't know the pinout.

(Sorry for straying off the WD3000GLFS topic.)

 

[Fushigi]

Take the old one to Batteries Plus. They can custom-build a battery pack for a few bucks.

 

[ddrueding]

Wow, that is a much more professional rig than the pictures I saw.

 

[LunarMist]

Wow, that is a much more professional rig than the pictures I saw.

The photo is linked from the Asus website. Do you mean something else?