Western Digital, a leading maker of hard disk drives (HDDs), on Tuesday announced the world’s highest-performance desktop hard drive. The new VelociRaptor HDDs not only boost capacities to 450GB and 600GB, but also provides 15% higher speed compared to predecessors.

WD VelociRaptor drives with 450GB and 600GB capacities feature 10 000rpm spindle speed, 32MB cache and Serial ATA-600 interface. Western Digital declares 3ms average latency, 3.6ms read seek time, 4.2ms write seek time as well as 0.4ms track-to-track seek time. Just like previous-generation VelociRaptor hard drives, the novelties come-in 2.5” form-factor with a special IcePack enclosure that cools-down that HDDs and allows to install them into 3.5” desktop bays.

"WD is a leader in the performance and reliability of enterprise SATA hard drives. Demand for performance combined with an increase in capacity continues to rise and WD is the leader in this category. WD customers can rely on the new WD VelociRaptor to deliver high performance under the harshest conditions, while continuing to keep user data safe,” said Tom McDorman, vice president and general manager of WD's enterprise business unit.

Thanks to new performance-boosting techniques, such as increased cache size, improved areal density and others, WD claims that the fifth-generation Raptor-series hard drive provides up to 15% higher performance than the fourth-generation VelociRaptor.

WD VelociRaptor (model WD4500HLHX and WD6000HLHX - 3.5” versions with IcePack) hard drives are available now at select distributors and resellers. WD VelociRaptor 2.5” hard drives (model WD4500BLHX and WD6000BLHX) are under evaluation with OEM customers and will be available through select commercial distributors within this quarter. Manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP) for the WD VelociRaptor 450GB (model WD4500HLHX) is $299 and the 600 GB (model WD6000HLHX) is $329.

Tags: WD, Western Digital, VelociRaptor