WD VelociRaptor 600GB: Fastest HD Ever Review

With all of the press solid start drives have received over the last year or so, it would be easy to think that few advancements have been made in the hard drive space. After all, hard drive capacities have seemingly plateaued at 2TB, performance can't come close to even a mid-range solid state drive in most scenarios, and it's hard to imagine prices falling any lower, when some drives can be had for about 7.5 cents per gigabyte. But Western Digital, despite releasing their very own line of solid state drives recently, continues to push the envelope with traditional spinning hard drives. Need evidence? Then check out the brand new WD VelociRaptor 600GB.

Like the first-Gen VelociRaptor, the new 600GB variant employs a 2.5" form factor, with a 10K RPM spindle speed. This new offering, however, sports denser platters, more cache, a SATA 6Gb/s interface, and a dual-core processor; all features designed to crank performance up a notch or three. Will the new VelociRaptor hit the same speeds as an SSD? No. But it is the fastest HD we have ever tested. Read on and see for youself...