Conclusions
Western Digital's new VelociRaptor VR150 is a leaner, meaner version of the Raptor that really owes little to its predecessor other than a 10K-RPM spindle speed. The VelociRaptor's design is a radical departure from the original, but we've grown to expect Western Digital to inject a little flavor into a hard drive market that's typically short on interesting designs. After all, this is the same company that released a windowed Raptor and tweak spindle speeds to lower power consumption for its GreenPower line.

While we commend the VelociRaptor's novel design, performance is what really matters. Fortunately, the VR150 delivers on that front in spades. It wasn't the fastest drive in every test and was even beaten by 7,200-RPM drives on a handful of occasions, but the VelociRaptor's combination of blazing-fast transfer rates and lightning-quick access times is a tough matchup for any Serial ATA drive. The VelociRaptor's only weakness may be its seek noise levels, which are higher than those of the fastest 7,200-RPM drives, but still much quieter than current 3.5" Raptors.

The VelociRaptor offers excellent performance across a wide range of applications, but its most spectacular showing was easily with IOMeter's multi-user workloads. These workloads don't simulate typical desktop environments, of course, but they're the most demanding tests we run. And they make a heck of a case for an enterprise derivative of the VelociRaptor. The 2.5" form factor is perfect for rack-mount systems where the VelociRaptor's low power consumption and strong multi-user performance will surely be appreciated. But I digress.

The VelociRaptor reclaims the crown of fastest Serial ATA hard drive in spectacular fashion. Drives are shipping now, so you should be able to get your hands on one soon. However, like the original Raptor, there's a price premium to be paid for this level of performance. The 300GB VR150 will sell for $300, giving it a cost per gigabyte five times that of terabyte drives currently on the market. Incidentally, though, the VelociRaptor's cost per gigabyte closely matches that of current Raptor drives, which are slower, louder, and consume more power.

So the VelociRaptor isn't a bang-for-your-buck wonder, then—at least not for typical desktop workloads. But it's still an absolute beast and a worthy successor to existing Raptors. What's more, the VelociRaptor embodies exactly the kind of imaginative innovation we like to see. When taken with its exceptional performance, we'd be remiss not to give the VelociRaptor VR150 an Editor's Choice award.