Any reason they can't create a vacume in the HD enclosure?

now we need 1tb raptors, and we are in business, i wonder after they mass produce these drives, if they will introduce a bigger raptor
duno why but after purchasing a raptor i wont have anything else

I appreciate how WD announce a product and there it is, available for me to buy... unlike some other companies.

Given that many makers use smaller platters in higher spindle speed drives... hmm. Even SAS drives now for 10K top out at what, 300GB? So even 500GB might be a bit much to ask for a 10K Raptor.

It's probably doable, you just wouldn't want to know the cost. Heck paying $900 for a 300GB Seagate Cheetah 10K.7 is a bit pricey for most gamers when that same $900 can buy a 150GB Raptor and a 8800GTX.

yeah, I'm looking for documentation on IntelliPower and I don't see any. :(

The F1 Samsung has 333gb per platter and (iirc) 32mb of cache!

AND Samsung is quiet and cool - I'm traditionally a fan of the 'proper' manufacturers like WD, Seagate, etc and would avoid Fujitsu, Samsung etc but..... 333gb per platter AND quiet?

They could do a 2 platter 666gb one and likely cheap too..... daymm.

Does any of this seem like Yet Another Hack?

Bring on non-mechanical parts for the masses already. Stop wasting time in a few percent differences in performance/power over decades. sheesh.

IntelliSeek™ - Calculates optimum seek speeds to lower power consumption, noise and vibration.

Err, that would be a seek speed of zero. Maybe they meant to add "whilst giving some performance".

Looks awesome.

This is excellent news. It is also nice to hear that the new models are around the corner and not blurred farther away in the distant future. I can't wait for a review!

One thing that would be handy at least for my purpose is a firmware switch to force the drive to 5400RPM mode at all times so as to reduce the 'worst-case' TDP. This way, if I install the drive in a cramped small form-factor case or a fanless NAS enclosure, and find that it runs cool enough to my taste at its typical, light usage pattern, I would not have to worry about it heating up under an unexpected stress.

Anybody want some "Green pr0n"?

So the 750 has four platters through PMR (according to the June 15 TR article). Does anything say what these are?

(in response to #12)

I think I know what you mean with regard to Hitachi. With my Hitachi 7K80 desktop drive, I could configure it to go low-RPM at idle (from 7200 to 5400). Initially I thought that in this mode the drive would actively struggle to remain at 5400RPM and speed up only when serious IO takes place. Unfortunately, it ended up more like a "sleep" mode than an on-the-fly power saving feature a-la Cool'n'Quiet, because it would kick in only after a long period of idle and the drive would not service IO requests at 5400RPM or during the speed transition. Everything would freeze till it has spun up again. I hope WD's version is more usable.

These desktop, laptop or server drives? I can see it being a big deal in the latter two, but not so much in desktops.

These could be awesome for laptop hard drives.. if only they would slap a 5 year warranty in there...

Adi

This reminds me of "Cheap, Fast, Good... Pick two" As far as the Intelli--- the drive is now being run by a committee. Bureaucracy can not seem to get any of the cheap, fast or good.

Seeing as green power is usually not compatible with max performance, I doubt it. A power-efficient Raptor would be like a 40-50mpg hybrid sports car. Maybe it can be done someday, but the logistics are difficult. When you want high spindle speeds, aggressive seek times, and large caches, those require power. Variable spindle speeds would likely reduce performance on a Raptor drive.

I'd be interested to see a Tech Report review on these Green Power drives, especially the larger ones, when they become available. It will be interesting to see how their performance compares with mainstream 7200RPM drives. They also sound like the perfect drive for a Windows Home Server box.