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(More customer reviews)There is no other speed improvement investment you can make on your computer that will have a more significant effect on speed than a fast hard drive. Faster video card? Nope. More memory? Nope. Faster CPU? Nope. I have done them all.
For home use, us hacks are forced to use mainstream parts because of costs. SCSI is the fastest alternative to SATA and EIDE drives. But, an Adaptec SCSI card costs about $300+ and the hard drive can cost $300 to $500 depending on size. SCSI hard drives for that reason are always smaller in capacity and most are under 100GB. I'm in engineering and my work computers have always been SCSI. But, you can make any dog computer rock by upgrading to SCSI if you have a big wallet.
This WD Velociraptor hard drive is the in between choice. It is not as fast as SCSI but close, and it is much faster than the standard hard drives. Compared to the 120GB SATA hard drive I replaced, I can notice a huge improvement for programs to load. If I had to guess I would say the speed is about double or a little more. Based on the specs for a 12msec standard hard drive, these are in the 5 to 6 msec range. Not bad for a $200 300GB hard drive. Some have complained about the cost per GB being high, but if you look at the cost per GB per second of the Velociraptor, it is the cheapest available on the planet. And remember, speed upgrades are not linear relative to costs. To get this close to SCSI speeds for this size hard drive I could spend $1000 in the SCSI world. I am impressed with this hard drive.
For those out there who might be hesitant because of the difficulty factor on how to transfer your current data onto the new hard drive, WD has created software which will do this whole change process for you with about 3 clicks of the mouse. The software called Data Lifeguard Tools comes on a CD with every retail version. This version sold here is the OEM version and has no software. But, you can download the tools for free from the WD website. All I had to do was add the new hard drive to my system and the software recognized it even though it was not partitioned or formated. It asked if you want to transfer everything from your boot drive to the new drive and that was it. After it finishes which takes several hours, you shutdown and take the old one out and you're done. Very easy process.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Western Digital VelociRaptor 300 GB Bulk/OEM Hard Drive 2.5 Inch, 16 MB Cache, 10,000 RPM SATA II WD3000GLFS
"Engineered for maximum speed WD VelociRaptor, the newest member of our unique class of 10,000 RPM SATA hard drives, combines a SATA 3 Gb/s interface and 16 MB cache, to deliver performance that is up to 35% faster than its speedy older brother. Key Features & Detailed Specifications:Average Latency 5.5 ms, Warranty 5 Years, Formatted Capacity 300 GB, Form Factor 3.5""-internal, Spindle Speed 10000 rpm, Compliant Standards RoHS, Interface Type SATA 3G, Cache/Buffer Size 16MB (Read: Adaptive & Write: Yes) and Average Seek Time 4.2 ms, User Sectors Per Drive -- 586,072,368.Transfer Rates:Buffer To Host (Serial ATA): 3 Gb/s (Max) and Transfer Rate (Buffer To Disk): 120 MB/s (Sustained).Average latency is 5.5 ms.Drive ready time -- 7.0 sec (average), 10 sec (maximum), Error rate (non-recoverable)
Buy cheap Western Digital VelociRaptor 300 GB Bulk/OEM Hard Drive 2.5 Inch, 16 MB Cache, 10,000 RPM SATA II WD3000GLFS now.
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