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Tom's hardware Review:

WD's New Raptor Drive Is a Bird of Prey!

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The VelociRaptor Bites!

The Velociraptor was a small, carnivorous dinosaur, well known to the public since the first Jurassic Park movie. Although it was oversized in the movie and its teamwork abilities are in dispute, using the dinosaur’s name, which in Latin means "swift thief", appears to be a really smart move for manufacturer Western Digital. The company has produced a family of excellent enthusiast for years - the Raptor - and the next generation strives for providing more capacity and better performance with radically changed physical dimensions.

While everybody expected a higher capacity and higher performance version of the Raptor (which is true), Western Digital went back to the drawing table and analyzed all characteristics for a high-end hard drive. The target was to create an enthusiast hard drive that had the reliability and performance to also satisfy the workstation and low-end server market, and to make sure it can compete with Flash-based drives at least for the time being. Professional server storage applications are currently moving from the 3.5" to the 2.5" form factor, while desktop will stay at 3.5" for the predictable future. However, Western Digital found a nice way to combine the best of both worlds.