The prices on the popular 10000 RPM Hard Drive models has dropped considerably in the past two years. And with the never ending bloat of software, you need all the power you can get from your hard drive.
There are several hard drive manufacturers that offer a 10000 rpm hard drive (and some have a 15000 rpm model). But there is only one brand and model that stands out in performance and price. In fact it’s so far ahead of the curve that there is little reason to even discuss the other brands. If you run power hungry applications like PhotoShop or Video/Music editing software, you will see a huge difference in operation.
The Western Digital Raptor was the first model out and offered a huge benefit in performance back in 2003. The latest version is named VelociRapter and with it’s SATA interface flat out increases the speed and performance of the original design by 35%. The two most popular sizes are 150 and 300 GB and they cost around $150 and $210 respectively. That’s about double the going price of a 7200 RPM hard drive of a greater size but the VelociRapter hard drives have a minimum of a 30% increase in performance.
What’s not to love about these two 10000 RPM Hard Drive models? They’re fast, run cooler, have a 5 year warranty, and operate with 35% less power. The VelociRapter is a second generation Raptor Hard Drive that pushes the technology forward in ever way. They are a little pricey compared to the 7200 RPM models but the performance is certainly worth a few extra bucks to many people. And the SATA 3 GB interface helps a lot too. It’s like going from a two lane highway to a 4 lane highway for data transfer.
By most people’s reviews, these two hard drives offer a very noticeable improvement in performance on all levels. Of course the bigger the files, the more you can take advantage of the fast interface and platter speeds. And you also feel the speed in large applications and operating systems like Windows 7. The smaller 150 GB model will be fine for most people. I only have about 90 GB of programs and data on my main workstation. And that’s with 40 gigs of music. I keep my videos and other rarely used data on a external drive.
Speaking of my main workstation, people often ask what I recommend to go with these fast hard drives. Price and performance wise without breaking the bank, here’s my choices:
* RAM – 8 GB of is DDR3 RAM operating at 1066MHz (about $200)
* Video Card – GIGABYTE GV-R485ZL-512H Radeon HD 4850 512MB 256-bit GDDR3
PCI Express 2.0 ($100)
* Computer CPU – AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.40 GHz Processor – Quad-core (around $180)
These are not the most expensive or the highest performers but they offer some great improvements in speed of operation on any level. You can spend $500 on a high end Gamer’s video card, and more than that on Intel’s latest fast CPU chips. I think I have about $750 in my workstation but it screams for the most part and does everything very fast.
Back to our 10000 RPM Hard Drive choice, I don’t think there is any more that you could ask for in a high end hard drive. Keep in mind that these hard drives are spinning fast so there is a little more noise than on the slower models. Most computer fans make more noise so it’s not a big deal.
Warranties: Both of the hard drives above have a mean failure time of about 1.4 million hours. That’s a long time. And they also have the 5 year factory warranty so these hard drives will last for 5 years no matter what! That’s 2 years longer than most hard drive warranties.
Western Digital broke new ground with the first Raptor 10000 Hard Drive model. If you want the high performance of a 10000 RPM hard drive, the latest VelociRapter models will certainly do the job with all the great features. Through in the long mean failure time and a five year warranty and you have a deal that’s hard to beat.
