Hot Stuff: WD Raptor 150 GB SATA Hard Drives

If you want the highest performance Serial ATA hard drives available, there's only one manufacturer to turn to and that's Western Digital. Its enterprise class Raptor hard drives are a hit among computer enthusiasts. The Western Digital Raptor hard drive achieves its remarkable performance thanks to the high rotation speed of its platters. At 10,000 RPM the WD Raptor is definitely one of the fastest spinning Serial ATA desktop HDD on the market, on par with enterprise level SCSI counterparts. While 7200 RPM drives are improving in performance by increasing platter density and putting larger caches on the HDD, Western Digital uses a "brute force" type method in increasing performance. It's not be the most elegant way but hey it works very well. ;-)

The only drawback to Western Digital's Raptor family is the premium price it commands, and a relatively small storage capacity. Conventional 7200 RPM desktop HDDs come in capacities up to 1TB (1000GB), and 500GB models can be had for around $100US. Western Digital's 74GB Raptor goes for around $130 USD, so you see what we mean. Still, a 74GB Raptor will speed up the performance characteristics of a computer nicely, as PCSTATS demonstrated in this review.

Western Digital alleviate the storage bottleneck with the 150GB WD1500AFHD RaptorX, a serial ATA hard drive with a clear window into its inner workings. Western Digital offers two variants of its high performance 150GB HDD, the Raptor WD1500ADFD and the RaptorX WD1500AHFD. The difference between the two is that Raptor 'ADFD' has a solid steel top while the RaptorX 'AHFD' has a crystal clear plastic see through top - so you can see the hard drive platters spinning and the read arm moving rapidly back and forth. The Western Digital RaptorX is the only hard drive on the planet that lets you look into the heart of the drive.

For the PC enthusiasts looking to impress, the RaptorX WD1500AHFD hard drive is the Ferrari of data storage. Watching the platters spin and the read/write arms move around is pretty cool. The 150GB Western Digital RaptorX WD1500AHFD SATA hard drive retails for about $206 CDN ($196 USD, £96 GBP), and comes with HDD management software and WD Secure Connect SATA DATA cable.

Special SATA Cable a Software

Native Command Queing Support

The Western Digital RaptorX WD1500AHFD HDD's specifications include support for Native Command Queuing (NCQ). The benefits of NCQ have been discussed previously, but in essence NCQ allows the hard drive to retrieve data more efficiently off the disk when multiple reads are involved. If you would like to read about the benefits of NCQ, check out the Gigabyte GA-K8NXP-9 motherboard review where we go into depth on the technique.

Gamers Benefit from a Fast Drive

In the computer industry rarely is there ever one well defined leader. Yet when it comes to enthusiast hard drives, Western Digital is clearly in front. It's Raptor series are fast Serial ATA desktop hard drives that have caught the attention of enthusiasts for all the right reasons. The RaptorX in particular for its visual and performance attributes.

With the 150GB Western Digital RaptorX WD1500AHFD, WD deals with the biggest criticism that affected its Raptor line, namely the lack of storage space.

A hard drive of 150GB isn't big by any means, but you can comfortably install the operating system like Microsoft Windows Vista along with all supporting applications without resorting to a slower secondary hard drive.

As an enterprise class hard drive, the 150GB Western Digital RaptorX WD1500AHFD comes with a enterprise class price of $206 CDN ($196 USD, £96 GBP). When you compare with other hard drives in the 150GB RaptorX's class it's actually not too bad... but it's more than what desktop users are used to paying.

The read, write and seek times of the 150GB Western Digital RaptorX WD1500AHFD are half that of high end desktop 7200 RPM drives (ie. much faster) and that alone should tell you that the RaptorX is quick. Of course with a 10,000 RPM rating means the WD RaptorX is more audible than a standard hard drive, but to be fair once the drive is behind the walls of a case it is not very noticeable.

The RaptorX WD1500AHFD is equipped with both Serial ATA and molex power connectors, so it is a good candidate for users with older power supplies that lack SATA power adapters.

The plastic window on the RaptorX WD1500AHFD is a defining element to this hard drive, and there is nothing else like it around. For the computer enthusiast with everything, a RaptorX is that one piece of kit which can really trick a PC out.

During operating the 150GB Western Digital RaptorX WD1500AHFD can get quite warm and you won't want to stack other hard drives close to the RaptorX. Having good system airflow is also recommended!

The 150GB Western Digital RaptorX WD1500AHFD was obviously fast and we're quite surprised that it performed quite a bit better than the 74GB WD Raptor.

If you're a performance user and want your system to be more responsive, the 150GB WD RaptorX WD1500AHFD should definitely be on the list of things to upgrade - with or without the window. As a Raptor user, I can say that I definitely noticed a speed increase from moving from regular desktop 7200 RPM HDDs.

Hardcore PC users need apply only, and the 150GB WD RaptorX WD1500AHFD is not for everyone. The price will turn off some users, but if you've built an ultimate gaming rig there's nothing else on the SATA desktop market that can match the RaptorX.