Western Digital VelociRaptor 600 GB Hard Disk Drive Review

Conclusions

We were very impressed with the new VelociRaptor 600 GB: it was between 25% and 30% faster than VelociRaptor 300 GB. Of course if you want something even faster than the new VelociRaptor, you will need to buy an SSD, which will cost you a lot more. Just to give you an idea, SiliconEdge Blue 128 GB costs USD 400, while VelociRaptor 600 GB costs USD 329. In order to match the capacity of VelociRaptor 600 GB you would need five 128 GB SSD’s, costing you USD 2,000 (or two 256 GB SSD’s at USD 800 each and one 128 GB SSD at USD 400 – the end price is exactly the same). OUCH.

The good news is that this new performance level comes with a interesting price tag: the 300 GB VelociRaptor can be found for USD 240, so we are talking about a 37% price increase for 100% more storage and 25%-30% more performance. That’s a terrific deal in our book.

If you need storage space and performance, we think the new VelociRaptor 600 GB is the perfect choice for its target audience (database servers and very high-end desktops). If you don’t need that much storage space, you can pick the new 450 GB model and save a little bit.