Conclusions

Over the past two years we have seen technology in all areas spring to the fore in significant uptakes in performance whether it be CPU, GPU or in this instance spindle drives.   As we discussed within the introduction the might and power for the second generation of Western Digital's VelociRaptor most certainly caught us all be surprise.  Todays offering of the third generation; it has to be said that this is a very significant leap forward to spindle disk technology.

This now brings us back to our topical point of choice.     Drives of this magnitude are most almost found within Raid arrays of one form or the other.  Most often critical data of this magnitude is missing

On launch this has been a very clever piece of marketing ensuring that both SATA and SAS drives are ready for the consumers, VAR's S.I.'s and of course both Tier 1 and 2's respectively.  Systems will be very soon flooding the market with these exception items as in some cases the primary boot, though in secondary domain the primary drive of choice.

The results shown within have certainly got many standing up paying very careful attention at what we have uncovered.  Firstly within the SPEC® tests the results shown within are as fast; if not faster than the ones shown only a few weeks ago with a solitary SSD using the same professional graphics card driver.  Therefore the whole system I/O most certainly is running at optimal performance with the aid of the new VelociRaptors.   Once more the debate of SSD v Spindle comes to the fore in the professional market.  As "bang for buck" this drive most certainly meets the criteria within the "need for speed".     Half a ms slice off both read and write seek times, an increase of 25MB/s within sustained throughput is not to be sneered at especially when looking into the much bigger picture.

Availability and cost of the drives, well like all new products of this magnitude there is a huge demand already in place for both 3 /12" and 2 1/2" variants and understandably so.   Cost, as to be expected they are on launch not cheap though interestingly enough in some online e-tailers we looked at there is only £20.00 difference between the 450GB and 600GB.  So a £1 a GB whilst operating at these high levels just might not be an option to some, others this 450GB Drive is most certainly a sweet point number and at such exceptional value.  Therefore whilst in some areas not as high a read speed as the SSD in others well it most certainly does give the SSD a darn good run for its monies.  Therefore within mission critical systems the option of Raid 1 at a snip of the cost, but not as fast is exceptional value in USD or UKP per GB.

Extreme fast is what we most certainly have here today.  There will be a cry of "what of the cost" from the analytical critic's.    If you wish a flow of revolutionary technology of this magnitude then we do most certainly have to pay - though once more to reiterate - Extreme fast is what we certainly have here today.   Which in turn means that cost is most certainly not a factor anyone would care to consider in gaining the gargantuan leap in technology and performance output.    Western Digital has brought to the fore a range of spindle drives that will suit the needs of the many and will have many happy waiting purchasers lining the doors waiting to fill their systems with these priceless goodies.

It has to be reiterated, time is money and the least hindrances in completing a monstrous render/redraw output, this is were the articulate debonair will win out.

Page 1 - Introduction
Page 2 - The WD VelociRaptor in the Raw
Page 3 - System Set-Up and Software Used
Page 4 - ATTO.   Crystal Mark Drive Benchmark. HD TACH 3.0.4.0
Page 5 - Everest Ultimate Version 5 (Latest Build)
Page 6 - Sandra 2010 and PCMark 2005 Advanced Hard Disc Test
Page 7 - Cinebench 10 64-Bit.   Cinebench 11.5 64-bit.   Bentley MicroStation Graphics Benchmark
Page 8 - SPECviewperf® 10.0 64-bit.   SPECapc for SolidWorks 2007™.   POV Ray 3.7 beta 35
Page 9 - Conclusions and Award
Update 1 - Raid 1 Results   Update Introduction and Test System Used
Update 2 - Raid 1 Results   ATTO.   Crystal Mark Drive Benchmark.   HD TACH 3.0.4.0
Update 3 - Raid 1 Results   Everest Ultimate.   Sandra 2010.   PCMark 2005 Advanced Hard Disc Test
Update 4 - Raid 1 Results   SPECviewperf® 10.0 64-bit.   SPECapc for SolidWorks 2007™.   Cinebench 10 and 11.5 64-bit.   POV Ray 3.7 beta