Western Digital's VelociRaptor 10K RPM SATA Drive

MojoKid was one of a number of people to submit about WDs new 10k RPM SATA Drive. He says "Western Digital's Raptor line of Hard Drives has been very popular with performance enthusiasts, as a desktop drive with enterprise-class performance. Today WD has launched a new line of high-performance desktop drives dubbed the VelociRaptor, and the product finally scales in capacity as well. The new SATA-based VelociRaptor weighs in at 300GB with the same 10K RPM spindle speed, but with one other major difference — it's based on 2.5" technology. Its smaller two-platter, four-head design affords the VelociRaptor random access and data transfer rates significantly faster than competing desktop SATA offerings. Areal density per platter has increased significantly as well, which contributes to solid performance gains versus the legacy WD Raptor series."

ARGH! Stupid WD!

[Anonymous Coward]

They used a non-standard connector layout so it won't work in the Mac Pro.

Re:Solid State, Fast Disks... all for wimps

[a_nonamiss]

I'm running Vista Ultimate on a dual quad-core server with 500GB of standard RAM as a disk and I can boot in under a minute and use Outlook AND Word at the same time.

Wow... we're almost performing up to the level we were at in 1989.

Re:Hmm... 2.5"

[WiglyWorm]

Well... the drives have a heatsink on them that bumb them up to 3.25" size. You can take them out, but it will raise the temp on each drive 4-5 degrees C. Plus add the heat from packing them so close together, and I'm not sure that's such a good idea.

Plus, if you take them out of the heatsink, you void the warranty.

Re:I have no confidence in anything from WD

[moosesocks]

Sounds like you're purchasing your drives from a dodgy OEM, especially since all of their laptop drives ship with 3-year warranty [wdc.com].

I suppose this might have been different in the past, though judging a hard drive manufacturer purely based upon anecdotal evidence is a bit flimsy. There are people who say the same thing about every single other hard drive manufacturer out there.

I'll wholeheartedly agree that there can be bad batches of drives (which is most likely what you encountered), though any faults are usually rectified quickly enough that there doesn't seem to be all that huge of a difference across manufacturers when you look at the entire population.

If you've ever managed a computer lab (eg. large number of identical machines), you'll occasionally run into a batch of machines with particularly dodgy power supplies, hard drives, etc..... More interestingly, if you've got a large sample of "identical" machines that were ordered in separate batches, you'll also likely find that the patterns of failure differ somewhat between the two batches.

The only exception to this is that server/enterprise-grade drives tend to be more reliable then their counsumer-grade counterparts. This is why they cost (a lot) more.

Re:ARGH! Stupid WD!

[What Would NPH Do]

Yeah, cause plugging in the power cable and then connecting the SATA cable to the motherboard is just such a hard task. I'm surprised anyone is able to muster the enormous amount of skill that's required by such a task.

Re:ARGH! Stupid WD!

[What Would NPH Do]

What exactly is flamebait about my post? Did I get some Mac fanboi's panties in a twist? I guess next time I should karma whore and parrot the Mac line about how simple basic tasks are impossible on a PC so you have to buy a Mac. Lord knows the world would be unable to plug in hard drives and memory sticks into their motherboards if not for paying that 1000+ dollar Mac premium.

Re:Laptop drive?

[raw-sewage]

Probably comes from people who, like me, used a ton of WD200, WD400, WD800, and some others, that had over 90% failure rate in the first 6 months. The only reason the OEM I worked for even used the drives is that they were cheaper (by only a few bucks, but every buck counts in this business!) than the others.

[...]

Once we switched to Seagate, we never had to deal with all of that again. Yes, we might have 1 drive go bad once in a blue moon, but no where near what we had with WD.

I don't doubt the accuracy of your story, but I've heard the same story over and over again, but with every hard drive manufacturer. I build my own computers, and have been for quite some time. I research the heck out of my components before I buy them. Like a lot of people, I want to get the best bang for my buck. Reliability factors into that. But in all the research I've done, as far as hard drive reliability goes, I've found that you don't have to look too hard to find your exact story, only with Seagate or Maxtor or Fujitsu or Hitachi or whatever. Seriously, go check out the forums at StorageReview.com, and do a search for "reliable". You'll find all kinds of "authoritative" posts like this:

I've been a [sysadmin/system integrator/builder/whatever] for [10+] years. I've always used [WD/Seagate/Hitachi/whatever], and only had [very small number] failures out of [very large number] of drives.

...Or the analogue, like your post, where someone has had [very large number] of failures with a particular brand.

The point is, I think all manufacturers (in general, not just hard drive makers) go through bad spells. Unfortunately, those bad spells typically aren't found out until too long after the fact. Best bet, if you can get away with it, is probably to buy technology that's a generation or two old, so you can see how the product has fared thus far. Sometimes I know that's not possible, so if it were me, I'd probably buy from multiple vendors, and spread the risk.

Also, if I remember correctly, there was that study done by Google on hard drive reliability/longevity that said no brand was more failure prone than the next.

Re:You misunderstand

[What Would NPH Do]

OS X

Don't want. So that's no added value to me. I run Debian on all my boxes.

a nicely made case,

Not really. The case I chose was in many was much better looking and more offered more space for upgrades than the one they are selling at least from looking at the pictures they offer.

a well tested set of components (supposedly),

Except in the case of the component being explicitly stated I got the exact same thing. So that's no advantage for Apple. In fact that's just highlighting just how much they are trying to rip me off.

direct support for hardware AND software issues from Apple, since they made everything and can't weasel out of support by claiming "it was the other guys stuff that broke!"

This is the only thing remotely approaching worth spending more money for, but not 1500 dollars more. Sorry, but you're going to have to convince me much better than that that I should spend a $1500 premium for a Mac Pro versus something I can build myself. In fact I can put that $1500 savings into actually buying a second comparably spec'd machine or I can build a machine that would be even more superior to the comparably priced Mac Pro.

Re:You misunderstand

[Demolition]

There's no use even making the comparison. You buy what you want because it makes sense for you. Other people buy Mac Pros (or Dells, HPs, or whatever) because they want the warranty, tech support, dealer network, etc. Apple just doesn't see folks like you as part of its market.