News Western Digital working on 20,000 RPM Raptor

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/06/06/western-digital-working-on-20-000-rpm-raptor/1

COMPUTEX 2008: Several industry sources have said that Western Digital is working on a 20,000 RPM Raptor hard drive.

 

20k?!!

That's insane. I want to see some reviews, if/when it hits. Gotta be good for a laugh at least.

 

this is really seems to be a desperate act, surly they would be better off putting the time into ssds

 

Whoop, 20K for the win! Although true, it does seem a bit excessive just to keep an aging tech up to date.

 

It will be ok as long as you don't put it in a cheap case, it would shake it to bits.

 

Wow.. 20k rpm. When the orginal raptors were out they werent cheap. I'm guessing these will cost quite a bit -- maybe more than the leading SSDs which will make SSDs a more viable option!

 

Western Digital knows what price point they have to worry about, so I don't find it likely that they'll be more expensive than solid state drives - but then again, that also comes down to the R&D and material costs. We'll just have to wait and see.

 

who needs damping if you have Antec case? p182 cheesecake!
my Raptor 74GB is almost silent, i don't hear anything idle, and similar noise to the 500GB AAKS when seeking..... where the AAKS are said to be silent!

20k RPM! i may get one just to piss off a Apple lover, where they only have 15k RPM drives

 

i think in the end all Hard Drive manufacturers will move a limb or 2 and then finally die... UNLESS they jump onto the ssd as soon as possible and co-operating with some memory manufactures. Because by the time SSD reach the consumer levels, there is no going back because there is (almost) no negative thing to think about compares to a Hard Drive.

SSD:
+ no noise
+ no vibrations
+ no moving parts
+ no magnetic problems
+ ultra fast
+ small
+ Energy efficient
+ Less/none heat buildup
+ Memory will grow over time (so no issues here)
+ less recourses needed to build
+ Life cycle
+ no problems with shocks

- Expensive (for now)
- eh.. (anybody knows another negative?)

Hard Drive:
+ capacity
+ cheap

- Noise
- Heat
- Vibrations
- Shocks
- Energy
- Life cycle
- Large
- Mechanical moving parts
- Lot of resources to make
- Not so fast
- don't drop it

 

completely pointless, its a dead tech, performance wise any way. They would be better off working on platter density of their current raptor in the hopes that there would still be a reason to even consider mechanical drives in a year.

 

My Raptor is driving me nuts at 10,000rpm - I somehow doubt this will be 'silent', probably more like 'less noise than one expects'.

Nope, I'll never buy a single small platter drive again. For storage they are fine. I don't get why they bother competing with performance any more, they've been beaten and they can never catch up again.

 

For the prive of a Raptor you can get 2 normal drives and strip them, which will give you almost the same performance.

 

i agree completely.

 

Not pointless at all until SSDs get lower in price. This drive would have a lifetime of what... a couple of years? Think SSDs are going to be as affordable in that time frame? Prolly not. Also, HDD tech isn't exactly standing still when it comes to capacities. Having said all that, I can't wait for SSDs to become really affordable as they are the long-term future.

 

Oh wait, what reliability? Sure they can make things that spin at 20 kRPM, but combining that and magnetic stuff and... Well, I just don't think these are gonna come out or be great products.

Hoover doesn't get cool even if you put chrome rims to it. HDDs aren't gonna remain the kings of the hill even how you supercharge the decades old idea behind them.

 

Hmm. After initial 'Wow!' thought, my mind then turned to the word 'Stop-gap'. I should imagine that they realise they're behind on SSD tech, and needed something to sell in the mean-time. I should imagine that the resources required for SSD development will be much more than their resources needed to improve their current lines...

Perhaps in 6-12 months you'll see this.. Perhaps in 18-24 months (catch-up) you'll see performance SSDs from WD.

 

Is there still the issue with an SSD, where you can only read / write so many times, as with a flash drive?

(Even so, I'm waiting for cheaper SSD's, before updating my storage)

 

Life cycle is not that different if you look a MTBF 1.4m Hours (VelociRaptor) vs 2m Hours (Samsung SSD).Both have MTBF over the life span of humans(~160 years for the VelociRaptor) SDD are the next step in data storage but i don't think they will replace Hard drive anytime soon. Also Currently Hard drive do not suffer from the issue of a shorten life span with large rewrite operations. The SSD currently use of different algorithms to make up for this flaw. IMO SSD still need more time before they hit mainstream

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_drive#Disadvantages

 

I think it'll be silent to us humans, but as it's spinning full-tilt all the local meandering dogs in the neighborhood will be sitting outside your place howling!

 

i'm more interested in life span and reliability of a drive that fast...

does twice the speed mean half the life?