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Western Digital Raptors have been widely accepted as one of the fastest standard-grade computer desktop hard drives produced. It is the choice of hard drives for innumerable computer enthusiasts as it offers reliable and fast performance and I feel that this range of drives should not just be confined to the realms of enthusiasts. With the remarkable performance boost that it can deliver, I believe that it would be widely accepted by the masses.

To the uninitiated, the Raptors have an average spindle speed of 10,000 (revolutions per minute). This is considerably faster than average drives from Seagate or Samsung (for example) which spin at an average of 7,200rpm. What this means, in simple terms, is that these drives are fast. These drives have above average seek and access times (at 4.6ms), which effectively abolishes problems of lag on slower drives. If you are facing the problem of slow loading times in Windows, or taking forever to open folders, a Raptor would be your panacea.

In the enthusiast/DIY arena, Raptors are often used in pairs, linked with each other in a RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) array. In a RAID array, two drives are used in conjunction with each other to perform various tasks. For example, a RAID-0 array links the two drives together, combining their capacities and producing one extremely fast hard drive. A RAID-1 array combines two disks into one, forming a drive with only the capacity of one disk. However, data is mirrored on both disks, which means that even if one disk fails, no data is lost. Installing two Raptors on a RAID-0 is a very popular path that enthusiasts choose. Raptors are already incredibly fast on their own, but leaving them in RAID-0 makes them even faster. As you would have realized by this point, Western Digital Raptors are all about speed.

Of course, the obvious benefits would come at a price. In the case of the Raptor, it comes with various downsides. There are only 3 kinds of Raptor capacities - 36GB, 74GB and 150GB (a 300GB will be launched soon, but will not be covered as it will not be classified under the same category as these Raptors). For storage demands now, 36GB and 74GB drives are abhorrently minute, even 150GB is considered small. However, most users would argue that Raptors are built for speed, not storage, as most would have a second hard drive for storage of data and use the Raptor specifically for programs and the operating system.

Furthermore, the Raptors are pricey - a 36GB Raptor’s price is equivalent to that of a 500GB Samsung drive. The cost per gigabyte ratio is horrendously high and some might not feel that this justifies the performance boost. This is especially so when other competitors are constantly improving their drives. While none have been able to match up to a consumer-grade drive of 10,000rpm, modern hard disk drives now are still plenty fast and with a huge storage capacity to boot.

Another minor qualm with regards to the Western Digital Raptor is that it is one noisy drive. Due to its blistering spindle speed, it emits a high-pitched whine every time it seeks out data. Though nothing substantial, it is still an annoyance. Despite this fact, I would still highly recommend this to the average consumers. I never regretted the performance increase, since I do admit that I am an impatient person. I never liked waiting too long for my computer to boot up, and the Raptor has alleviated much of this concern. I believe that the performance increase does make up for the shortcomings and this is indeed a recommended buy. Just remember, do your de-fragmentation of your drives in the day - you would not want to be kept awake by its perpetual whine.

Click here to buy a Western Digital Raptor 150GB 3.5″ SATA 1.5Gb/s Hard Drive
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