Conclusion

So, Western Digital released the second generation of their SATA drives with 10,000rpm spindle rotation speed. The new HDDs are equipped with super-dense 36GB platters and fast actuator, which determines their brilliant performance in synthetic benchmarks. The CQ support implemented in the new Raptor drives unfortunately didn’t improve the performance that much. It is hard to say why this happened: it is either the absence of CQ support by the existing controllers or the low efficiency of ATA CQ. One thing is clear though: no one is going to release any new SATA 1.0 controllers. Ultra/150/CQ support in the controller drivers is a completely different thing. Although will the SATA-controller manufacturers care about it now that the new SATA drives with NCQ support are about to come out?

Of course, Western Digital will also introduce new HDDs with NCQ support. But we do not know yet if this is going to be the “new old Raptor” or a completely new generation of HDDs with NCQ support. Especially since most SCSI HDD makers usually announce new products in winter.

Speaking about our today’s hero, WD740GD, I have to state that the new Raptor is significantly faster than its predecessor and boasts larger storage capacity, which will definitely make it more popular. Moreover, our tests showed that Western Digital WD740GD is the today’s fastest desktop hard disk drive.