Western Digital 20,000RPM ‘Super’ VelociRaptor HDD To Take Fight To Solid State Drives?

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According to ‘several sources close to the hard drive industry’ Western Digital is purportedly working on a new 20,000rpm version of its VelociRaptor, at the time of writing the world’s fastest SATA HDD, which is intended to directly compete against solid state drives in offering comparable speeds but with potentially far greater storage capacities.

In what appears to be a direct response to the falling prices and increasing popularity of SSDs which, at present certainly, are no particular threat to traditional HDDs but are expected to be in the near future as prices drop and capacities soar, WD are rumoured to be working on a ‘Super VelociRaptor’ (could it be a T-Rex, perchance – I mean, its hardly going to be called a Triceratops is it?) which would retain standard 3.5” format, the drive itself being 2.5”, and, according to an unnamed source, will be ‘silent’. That said, it will be interesting to see quite how WD act to counter vibration at such speeds and, regardless of any vibration dampening, a ‘traditional’ HDD is never going to win out in terms of ruggedness against the likes of SSDs with their complete lack of moving components.

Personally, though its early in the game, our opinion is that SSD’s will more than probably win out in the end, regardless of WD’s attempts to put off what is undoubtedly a foregone conclusion. Still, we respect WD’s fighting spirit.

[via]