Western Digital VelociRaptor 300 GB Bulk/OEM Hard Drive 2.5 Inch, 16 MB Cache, 10,000 RPM SATA II WD3000GLFS

Buy Cheap Western Digital VelociRaptor 300 GB Bulk/OEM Hard Drive 2.5 Inch, 16 MB Cache, 10,000 RPM SATA II WD3000GLFS

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"Engineered for maximum speed WD VelociRaptor, the newest member of our unique class of 10,000 RPM SATA hard drives, combines a SATA 3 Gb/s interface and 16 MB cache, to deliver performance that is up to 35% faster than its speedy older brother. Key Features & Detailed Specifications: Average Latency 5.5 ms, Warranty 5 Years, Formatted Capacity 300 GB, Form Factor 3.5""-internal, Spindle Speed 10000 rpm, Compliant Standards RoHS, Interface Type SATA 3G, Cache/Buffer Size 16MB (Read: Adaptive & Write: Yes) and Average Seek Time 4.2 ms, User Sectors Per Drive -- 586,072,368. Transfer Rates: Buffer To Host (Serial ATA): 3 Gb/s (Max) and Transfer Rate (Buffer To Disk): 120 MB/s (Sustained). Average latency is 5.5 ms. Drive ready time -- 7.0 sec (average), 10 sec (maximum), Error rate (non-recoverable) <1 in 10e15 bits read. Supports LBA. Seek time: Read: 4.2 ms (average) & Write: 4.7 ms (average), Track-to-track seek time -- 0.7 (maximum). Load/unload cycles -- 50,000 minimum. Limited warranty -- 5-year "
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Technical Details

- 300GB Capacity
- SATA 3 Gb/s
- 16 MB Cache
- 10,000 RPM Spindle Speed
- RoHS Compliant
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 "Very Fast Drive, very bad packaging" 2009-03-26
By Victor M. Mitri (Qatar)
I can't say allot on HDD, its fast and doing the job.



Take in consideration these important factors:



1- it's not exactly 3.5" HDD size, it's non standard HDD size almost 2.5" however it's thicker fitted in heat sink to make it almost 3.5", however it's slightly bigger and can be a problem in installing it, depends on your PC case. I had to do some serious modifications to fit it in my HTPC





2- packaging is extremely bad, no cables, no connectors, no catalogues. Just a nylon cover, I wonder why they have invested in this cover?



Price: overpriced, do not expect 10x difference speed, speed difference comparing to the price difference it are extremely high.



Unless you are in audio / video processing this is not your baby, it's just waste of money.



For gaming and video playing, it perform exactly the same as my 1TB 7200 RPM 32mb, price of the 1tb is US$120



Windows Vista booting is improved for few seconds.

 "Good when they work.." 2009-03-22
By Brian Reigle (Southern California, USA)
I purchased a case of 40 of these drives for 20 servers (RAID 1) in my datacenter. I had 6 fail within the first 3 months of operation. The drives are great when they work. Do not expect any technical support at all from WD as they will not support these drives in RAID configurations. They do RMA drives quickly, although I received the wrong drive twice in return. It took about a month each to get those drives replaced. I would highly not recommend this drive for any type of mission critical business operation, even if you are running these drives in a RAID 1 array.

 "fast hard drive system" 2009-02-07
By Anthony M. Forte
I built my PC with one of these drives and then added a second to form a RAID 0 set. To say the least, I'm extremely pleased with the result.

 "Fast" 2009-01-30
By GrumpyOne (Northern, NJ USA)
Very fast drive, works great, only negative is that it does not lock onto the metal clip on newer sata cables, and it is pricy though Amazon has a great price.

 "You will notice the speed difference!" 2009-01-28
By P. McGuire (USA, California)
I'm a loyal Western Digital fan. So when my C:\ drive started making noises and locking up windows (an old WD 320GB Caviar) it was time to upgrade.



First off, this drive is incredibly fast. It fits in the 3.5inch bay on my Dell Inspiron 530 perfectly. Booting up windows (didn't time it) was noticeably faster. Usually when I log into windows I have to wait 1-2 minutes for everything to load. Now, with the VelociRaptor I can open programs instantly after logging into Windows.



Now for some official numbers: Malwarebytes quick scan. On my old 7200RPM 320GB - a scan would take 3.1 minutes. With the Velociraptor the scan takes one minute and 56 seconds.



As far as noise - it seems a tad bit louder than my 320GB Caviar when seeking for data but not noticeably louder when idling. However the noise is not noticeable when the computer is under the desk as mine is.



I didn't think that going from 7200RPM to 10,000RPM would be that much of an upgrade but it is amazing how much faster everything is. Windows boots faster, Windows logs in 2x as fast, programs open up faster, World of Warcraft loads a ton faster, and backups in Acronis are 2x as fast.



Definitely recommend this drive! Beware it is OEM so you need your own SATA cables and screws. I was replacing a drive so that was ok. I also bought this from Amazon (at the time Amazon was selling) - not a third party.


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Buy Western Digital VelociRaptor 300 GB Bulk/OEM Hard Drive 2.5 Inch, 16 MB Cache, 10,000 RPM SATA II WD3000GLFS Now

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Western Digital VelociRaptor 300 GB Bulk/OEM Hard Drive 3.5 Inch, 16 MB Cache, 10,000 RPM SATA II WD3000HLFS

Buy Cheap Western Digital VelociRaptor 300 GB Bulk/OEM Hard Drive 3.5 Inch, 16 MB Cache, 10,000 RPM SATA II WD3000HLFS

Buy Low Price From Here Now
Engineered for maximum speed! WD VelociRaptor, the member of the unique Western Digital`s class of 10,000 RPM SATA hard drives, combines a SATA 3 Gb/s interface and 16 MB cache to deliver performance that's up to 35% faster than its speedy older brother. At the same time, WD VelociRaptor consumes 35% less power than the previous generation of WD Raptor. Rotary Acceleration Feed Forward optimizes operation and performance when the drives are used in vibration-prone, multi-drive chassis.Ideal for blade servers, performance enthusiast systems, workstations, and low-end servers.
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Technical Details

- 3.5IN BACKPLANE READY
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 "My Ultimate Computer (Under 2K [...])..." 2009-07-23
By JAG (Boston, MA USA)
Very Stable on the following system:



- EVGA 132-CK-NF78-A1 nForce 780i SLI

Socket 775 A1 Version Motherboard

- Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 Processor, 2.83 GHz,

12M L2 Cache, 1333MHz FSB, LGA775

- Vista Business 64-bit Operating System

- Zalman CNPS9700NT Copper Heat Pipe CPU Cooler

- OCZ OCZ2N800SR4GK SLI DDR2 PC2-6400

4 GB Dual Channel Memory Kit

- EVGA 512-P3-N976-AR e-GeForce 9800 GT

Superclocked 512MB DDR3 PCI-E 2.0 Graphics Card

- CORSAIR 650w TX Series 80 Plus Certified Power Supply

 "Western Digital on Steroids" 2009-06-12
By G. Lapidus (Bay Area, California USA)
The raptor is the only drive I've used in my last six computers, and I just added this one to my kids and my own. There is little to add to what's already been said. Reliable, fast and quiet.

 "Great Seller, Great Drive" 2009-05-19
By PC Pro (Fort Lauderdale, FL, USA)
Great Seller, Great Drive. The seller was very communicative and very customer service oriented. The drive came in much sooner than expected and worked great. Needless to say a WD Velociraptor is much better than any regular hard drive in every way but cost. Fast, quiet, and a 5 year warranty; what more can you ask?



Ps. This replaced my 74gb WD Raptor, another great 10K drive but not as sweet as this new model.

 "Fast, Faster, & Fastest! Raptor 300GB Smokes The Field!" 2009-05-04
By Wavey Davey (Southern CA, USA)
This HD is a piece of work, and no wonder. Look at its statistics: 10K RPM, 300GB (279.5GB formatted), 1.2 Million Hour MTBF Enterprise reliability factor, 3-platter internal configuration, Icy Dock Heat-Sink/2.5" to 3.5" Adapter, Back-Plane ready, 16MB Cache...and best of all to go along with that 1.2Million MTBF (mean time before failure) rating it's guaranteed to last 5-years by Western Digital's all-inclusive Factory Warranty, the highest in the business.



I'm a big fan of WD's Enterprise HD's, and use them extensively when building systems, or equipping my own system for ultimate reliability and performance. The "new generation" of VelociRaptor HD's is not only faster in all respects than Gen. No.1, its builders have tried very hard to make certain that reliability goes hand-in-hand with high performance, apparently. You can't say enough about attention to detail here either, with that very cool Icy Dock heat-sink/2.5" to 3.5" carrier mounting system either.



A lot of people don't realize that these HD's are in reality just 2.5" in size, truly a little dog doing a big dog's work! So getting 10K RPM performance out of a little 2.5" form-factor system is truly interesting to me, and I have a bit of respect for Western Digital engineering for pulling this out of the hat and making them better 2nd time around, all-around. Let me give you some statistics from HD Tune Pro's benchmarks, and we'll see how a fully loaded and empty Raptor 300GB performs, and perhaps that will shed some light on just how good the HD's are overall.



Fresh formatted and empty, I tested my Raptor in my brand new OEM PC (home built, totally 100% custom-made with all high-end hand-picked parts) with HD Tune Pro, and got this kind of performance:



1) from 8KB to 8192KB block size, with 64MB file size, it *averaged* 128MB/sec Read Speed and 142MB/sec Write Speed



2) same test, loaded with Vista Ultimate 64-bit OS, and some 70GB worth of key applications and a base system of samples and key photographs for my imaging business, making it 72% open space, it *averaged* 97MB/sec Read Speed and 104MB/sec Write Speed



3) In the Benchmark Test, again loaded with the OS and applications and samples, we get 121MB/sec maximum Read Speed, 68MB/sec minimum Read Speed for an average of 101MB/sec across the volume from 0% full to 100% full, a very linear performance.



4) Benchmark Test, loaded, access time is a whopping 7.3 milliseconds (ms), Burst Rate is 152MB/sec., both range-topping figures from any HD I've ever tested!



That kind of performance is what makes people so happy to spend $240 or so on this HD in bulk form, more than $300 in retail boxes, and I cannot argue with their logic after installing and using a Raptor for my boot HD in the new PC build. I've got every new trick in the business in this PC, including the newest, latest, and greatest EVGA X58 1366-compatible motherboard, and twin companion WD "Black" 1TB HD's in an internal 2TB RAID "0" write/read-to volume, plus a big 4TB external RAID 6 system for movies and film, audio, and countless other high-GB-sized projects that I do, and the Raptor controls all of it tight, clean, fast, and reliably.



With all of that menage' internally and externally in this PC, boot time would be several minutes normally, but the Raptor puts everything necessary loaded up and ready in less than a minute. I've trimmed the Start-Up Items to just 23 totally necessary things, where most people wouldn't bother, and that helps with boot time incredibly, or load-time when doing a restart after installing an application or one-time venture for a project, but that is a very, very quick start-up, and you have to give it to the Raptor for pulling it off.



In addition, the Icy Dock seems to do wonders for keeping the Raptor literally cool temperature-wise, as I've never seen temps above 114-degrees F or 33-degrees C yet, and I've been doing some heavy-duty reads, writes and captures with the new PC since I finished it: ie it's NOT had an easy time of it, I've been pushing and pushing the envelope with respect to performance, storage and CPU-wise both, since it was finished last week.



Anytime a HD gets better than 100MB/sec average for read-write performance loaded up with applications, key samples and storage, where it's about 70% or so Free Space, you are styling along pretty XLNT! And this Raptor pulls that off in my new system easily, it seems.



It's virtually silent, as a matter of record, as my PC's 2 x 230mm, 1 x 140mm, and 2 x 120mm internal fans make a bit of racket anyway, so I don't notice the Raptor making much 'clicking and clacking' as it seeks and writes, so those worried about acoustical performance can relax! In fact, my twin internal 1TB WD "Black" HD's (also Enterprise-guaranteed HD's that I also endorse as policy in my business) make a LOT more noise in their RAID 0 configuration, as they are constantly asked to rip, read, and write data internally in the new PC.



The Raptor is just simply the finest boot HD system one could have in a PC or Mac, and I gave it 5 stars ***** across the board for performance, noise, and thermal efficiency. Size is *just right* @ 300GB, not too big, not too small, just right to have plenty of room for basic necessities and some applications, plus Vista Ultimate 64-bit OS (necessary if running more than 4GB of SDRAM in any PC build, or retail computer, as Windows 32-bit addressing stops @ 4GB of RAM/SDRAM) takes up quite a bit of space, more than 20GB if you load everything up but the multiple-language support.



Remarkably, my best impression of this new HD system is that it's seamless, ie you just don't notice its XLNT performance much, it just goes about its job relentlessly, like a little tough warrior who's carrying a Big Dog's burden and making light of it like the Champion it is.



My compliments go out 110% to Western Digital engineering for the "crowning touches" to the VelociRaptor HD systems, as apparently the 150GB version of this HD in its new format is also an XLNT performer like the 300GB version. They have hit it "on the $Money" this time, and Wavey Davey gives the new Raptor his official seal of approval, tested in the field 100%+ and then some in the past week-and-a-half, where I've been pretty brutally breaking in the new PC, just pushing all aspects of the system 24/7 as I fine-tuned the CPU, SDRAM clocking and the HD systems, all 3 of them.



After this brief period with the Raptor I honestly don't know what I'd replace it with, if I had to! Probably just another one, its performance is so addicting...



One aside, though, for reference, and one thing about this Raptor purchase that truly does NEED IMPROVEMENT! Amazon.com, you need to have your head examined for shipping me this Raptor 300GB the way you did!! Wrapping a new HD in a simple double layer of double-bubble-wrap, and throwing it into a HD box with no foam, no layer-holder, HD-specific carrier assembly, or other type of protection is JUST PLAIN STUUUPID!



I was so paranoid about the way it was packed that I formatted it fully, checked it for bad sectors and damage 10 different ways before it was put to the test in my new system, ALL BECAUSE of the way it was shipped!



I give Amazon.com a big ZERO for THAT performance! By the way, this HD was shipped to me, here in the West, by their Arizona drop-ship "house" for HD's and other equipment, and they were the people responsible for this shoddy, risky, stuuupid, packing job on that Raptor HD, so buyer beware if you are receiving HD's from their "Western Operations" at Amazon.com.



I've got to call a Spade a Spade here, and if they publish this review, they had better publish ALL of it, because there is no excuse for risking a valuable, expensive piece of a computer build like a new Raptor 300GB HD by packing it like a novice might do it. They have to know better than that, they just have to, as professionals!



If they've run out of proper packing materials, they need to NOT SHIP until they've got the foam, the HD carrier, some heavy-duty anti-static system, you know, the usual way that a new HD is shipped from a company to the consumer.



I almost sent it back, sight unseen, never tried, just because of the way it was shipped, but I was under pressure to get the build-out completed last week, and I took a chance on this Raptor being aok fine after testing it completely, every way I knew how outside of the computer before installing it internally in the new chassis. So....



I'll repeat it once more, as it's been noted by others here, Amazon.com needs to step up its act, improve its shipping practices, with delicate OEM or "loose" HD's from their shipping facilities to the buyer. The type of packing that was pulled off in my case is just unacceptable in every way, and I leave it at that. IMPROVE, or start to LOSE BUSINESS because people don't like what you're doing.



Wavey Davey 5-03-2009

 "A great drive, but a little loud . . ." 2009-04-26
By J. Teeples
I will start off saying I love this drive. It installed in seconds on my Mac Pro (early 2009) and is fast. That being said, it is a little louder than your standard drive -- but that was to be expected.


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