WD Raptor 150 GB Internal Hard Drive

Quality Consumer Level Performance

Strengths: High Speed, SATA, Decent Storage.

Weakness: Size and Price

I've had this fella tooling along in a rather oversized performance machine. It's been a bit over a year now of running this hard for anywhere from 6-14 hours every day without a hitch. It can produce a bit more noise then a normal hard drive that one might be used to, but that is the trade off of the higher speed performance this drive provides, and it is certainly a noticeable increase in...
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I've had this fella tooling along in a rather oversized performance machine. It's been a bit over a year now of running this hard for anywhere from 6-14 hours every day without a hitch.

It can produce a bit more noise then a normal hard drive that one might be used to, but that is the trade off of the higher speed performance this drive provides, and it is certainly a noticeable increase in performance. Side by side with another system running on Western Digital Caviars, this guy gets the boot done faster.

The real downside is of course, the 150gb size. if you need a ton of space, one or two of these as your boot drive/raid with a larger storage drive is the best way to go. If you can afford the cost, raid0 as many of these together as your system can support, the burst speed is incredible when multiple drives are working in tandem (raid5 is the best trick if you can make it happen!)

I punish this drive i admit, it sits tight between other HDs in a case that puts out an immense amount of heat (four video cards (quad-SLI), physx processor, overclocked processor, etc) and it is regularly riding higher than normal temps due to sucking in toasted ambient air, its been over a year and it's faithfully taking care of the job still.

the price is a bit rough, but acceptable for a consumer market.. i'd recommend this guy for anyone who needs decent performance, whether a gamer or a designer!

By tkilljoy - Jul 13, 2007

The Bar By Which All Others Will Be Judged Has Just Been Raised !

Strengths: Repeat after me, Fast, Fast, Fast!, 95% of the performance of 15,000 RPM SCSI drives without the SCSI headaches, 16 MB buffer, 4.6 ms seek time

Weakness: Price is still high at $200, 150 GB is on the smaller end compared to current 1 TB monster drives, Raptor X is louder than regular 150 or 75 GB Raptors, SSD drives may soon eclipse the Raptors

(Jan 6th, 2008) Every few months one of the five or so large drive manufacturers (Western Digital, Maxtor, Hitachi, etc) comes out with a new hard drive claiming revolutionary advancements. This crap is almost never true, but with the 150 GB Raptor we finally have a drive that trys to live up to some of its billing. If you are an enthusiast, power user, rich or just plain hate the slow boot times...
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(Jan 6th, 2008) Every few months one of the five or so large drive manufacturers (Western Digital, Maxtor, Hitachi, etc) comes out with a new hard drive claiming revolutionary advancements. This crap is almost never true, but with the 150 GB Raptor we finally have a drive that trys to live up to some of its billing. If you are an enthusiast, power user, rich or just plain hate the slow boot times of Windows, then these Raptors are your ticket. The model I am reviewing here is the Raptor X and includes a clear window in the top plate. There is another version of the 150 GB Raptor as well, with the primary difference being that it does not have the window and is therefore quieter.
Western Digital has taken a long close look at its previous 10,000 rpm Raptor drives (and many competitors 10,000 and 15,000 rpm SCSI drives) and improved upon almost every weakness. Most notably, the Raptor now sports 150 GB of storage, which is double the amount of room of its previous flagship Raptor. The drive also had a 16 MB data buffer which aids in lower read/write times (versus 8 MB on the 74 GB Raptors). The only offset is that the 150 GB Raptor X is about 9 dBa louder than the 74 or 36 GB Raptor versions (due to the polycarbonate window)(this is not true for the regular non-window 150 GB Raptor which is only about 1~2 dBa louder). With my mediocre equipment, I measured an output of 51 dBa during read times for the 150 Gb version versus 42 dB for the 74 GB Raptor. The drive is also about the same temperature as the 74 GB Raptors thanks to the identical heatfin design and perhaps the 4 physical read/write heads. I measured only 37 degrees celcius on both drives versus 39 C on my older 74 GB Raptors.
This new Raptor also supports almost all of the innovations of the new SATA II standard, including Native Command Queing (NCQ). NCQ is basically a mathematical algorithm that prioritizes the drive's read heads to pick up data from the platters depending upon physical closeness versus the serial functions of older SATA drives. These new Raptors unfortunately run at the older 1.5 Gb/s SATA I speeds but there is no application that would be able to saturate this bandwidth anyway. These features add up to an out of this world 241 MBps Burst speed in HD Tach 3.1 (when setup in a RAID O (x2 drives) configuration) and about 78 MBps write speed sustained for one drive. In fact, if you compare these drives to the ultra expensive and elite SCSI 15,000 RPM drives, you find that you will get about 90 to 120% of the performance for only about 30 to 50% of the price (and without any of the SCSI setup headaches).
Modders and hardware monkeys will love the new 150 GB Raptor X models because the top of the drive is transparent polycarbonate. The drive also looks damn nice with a tough industrial styling and heat fins on the side to help with thermal output. Also, do not forget that these drives come with five year, no questions asked warranties to back up your investment.
The only downside might be that recently released solid state drives (SSD) can produce much faster reads (but are still slower in the write department). When the capacity and write speeds for the SSD drives start to catch up, I can see the demise of the Raptor series beginning. These Raptors have truly raised the bar and the only folks who will not be desiring these drives will be home movie/video editors who need huge drives to store all their movies on. If you lust after good hardware for your computer then prepare to sell your prized possessions on Ebay, refinance the home, or send your children into indentured servitude because these new 150 GB Raptors just upped the bar another notch.

By jayhall0315 - Jan 8, 2006

Fastest Sata drive I have ever tested.

Strengths: Speed, reliability, great raid drive.

Weakness: Though 150 gigs is a big jump from the previous 74 gig raptor drives, the size is still its only weakness.

Western Digital does it again. They release an update to the fastest Sata drive on the market, which was overdue, but well worth the wait. These drives are up to any task you can throw at them.

By deadsoulz - Jan 17, 2006

Great drive!

Strengths: Fastest SATA, less expensive than similar speed from SCSI

Weakness: Makes a good small random read/write for boot, not for huge files

I have been using this drive in a RAID 0 as a boot drive on my PowerMac G5 for quite some time with a Firmtek SATA PCI card to bypass the native SATA. (Newer Mac Pro's won't need the PCI card.) The speed and 300GB storage size is very ideal and FAST! With my huge collection of movies, tv shows and music from iTunes, the response of these RAID O Raptor drives is awesome. I would advise one Rator...
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I have been using this drive in a RAID 0 as a boot drive on my PowerMac G5 for quite some time with a Firmtek SATA PCI card to bypass the native SATA. (Newer Mac Pro's won't need the PCI card.)

The speed and 300GB storage size is very ideal and FAST!

With my huge collection of movies, tv shows and music from iTunes, the response of these RAID O Raptor drives is awesome.

I would advise one Rator 150GB as a boot drive and larger drive like 500GB for a file drive if your budget or needs doesn't call for the risks of a RAID O.

By MacAddictedForever - Sep 29, 2006

Raptor Hard Drive

Strengths: SATA, 10000 rpm, 16MB

Weakness: price

At this point in time, Western Digital is the only hard drive manufacturer that has all the bells and whistles, ie. SATA, 10000 rpm, 16 MB and decent capacity(150 GB)for this class of enthusiast hard drive. It is pricey though.

By roberto1 - Mar 23, 2006