Western Digital My Book VelociRaptor Duo Released

[onethreehill]

WD has released an update to their popular My Book Duo line of external hard drives, this time instead of going for capacity, they're going for performance with a pair of 1TB WD VelociRaptor 10,000 RPM hard drives. The My Book VelociRaptor Duo is designed for creative professionals who want local access to SSD-type performance, without giving up capacity. In this case that means up to 400MB/s throughput over Thunderbolt, with Mac and PC compatibility. And should that not be fast enough, daisy-chaining VelociRaptor Duos together nets linear speed increases, 800MB/s for two and so on.

Like other Duo models, the pair of VelociRaptor drives are user serviceable, accessed via an easy to open panel on top of the unit. The drives can be configured in RAID0 for maximum performance, or RAID1 for data protection. The Duo also provides a JBOD option for users running a Windows operating system on a Mac. WD also includes a Thunderbolt cable and three year warranty with the unit....

http://www.storagereview.com/western...r_duo_released

Updated: Western Digital My Book VelociRaptor Duo Review
http://www.anandtech.com/print/6216

[One_Hertz]

Calling this "SSD-type performance" is incredibly misleading and borders on false advertising.

[gatecrasherlok]

Gotta agree on the mis-leading advertising.

[Miwo]

Do people really care about Random 4K performance on External Storage Enclosures? I don't really think its misleading. Reading/Writing Large files is about on par with mainstream SSDs. Brainless Daisy Chaining to double speed is a nice touch

[Miwo]

But at $899 I feel sorry for buyers who are dumb enough to get this.

512GB SSDs have come down in price quite a bit and can be found on slickdeals often. Can probably get about 1.5TB of SSD space for the same price :o

[EniGmA1987]

But at $899 I feel sorry for buyers who are dumb enough to get this.

512GB SSDs have come down in price quite a bit and can be found on slickdeals often. Can probably get about 1.5TB of SSD space for the same price :o

Well, not quite. But close and way better performance:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820227742

[onethreehill]

Western Digital My Book VelociRaptor Duo Review
http://www.anandtech.com/print/6216

[naokaji]

SSD like performance is flat out impossible to achieve with traditional style harddisks.

Plus the price of this is very deep into Nas territory and a Nas will offer far better functionality.

[crash5s]

Do people really care about Random 4K performance on External Storage Enclosures? I don't really think its misleading. Reading/Writing Large files is about on par with mainstream SSDs. Brainless Daisy Chaining to double speed is a nice touch

Agree 100%. A lot of what makes SSDs good doesn't really matter for an external drive. Sure they are still faster, but you are paying extra for performance that you're not really going to use. I don't see what the fuss is. SSDs are not the be-all-end-all in drives for every situation. I'm not going to hold that against them.

But at $899 I feel sorry for buyers who are dumb enough to get this.

As for the price, thunderbolt is spiking the price up. Just about anything thunderbolt carries an absurd price point right now, and I don't see that changing in the near future.

Plus the price of this is very deep into Nas territory and a Nas will offer far better functionality.

You're looking at it wrong. The price of this is firmly in thunderbolt territory. The amount of storage you get is less than most thunderbolt devices because those are running 7200 rpm drives, not raptors.

This isn't for the type of person that has a large home network with a NAS. It's for the type of person that uses a laptop and when at home has a monitor, mouse, keyboard, and external storage for it. The fastest interface you're going to get is thunderbolt. I'm fairly sure this device will clobber the competing alternatives that all rely on 7200 rpm drives.

[Manicdan]

2 fast HDDs in raid 0 for 900$, i dont get it either.
max speed is also only going to apply to certain areas of spinning drives too. average speed is probably 25% lower

the Promise Pegasus R6 12TB in the anand review was a little more than twice the price, but you get 6x the space, 2x the speed, and raid5 instead of raid0. if your data is worth it to you, thats what you would get. raid0 is NOT what people should be getting for backups.

[paulbagz]

Well, not quite. But close and way better performance:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820227742

Not really an external HDD... =/

-PB

[crash5s]

2 fast HDDs in raid 0 for 900$, i dont get it either.
max speed is also only going to apply to certain areas of spinning drives too. average speed is probably 25% lower

the Promise Pegasus R6 12TB in the anand review was a little more than twice the price, but you get 6x the space, 2x the speed, and raid5 instead of raid0. if your data is worth it to you, thats what you would get. raid0 is NOT what people should be getting for backups.

The price is inline with WDs other thunderbolt devices. If you look at the others they have and subtract the cost of the drives and add in the cost of raptors (which cost more) the sticker price is fine. I agree that RAID0ing your backups is stupid though.

[naokaji]

The price is inline with WDs other thunderbolt devices. If you look at the others they have and subtract the cost of the drives and add in the cost of raptors (which cost more) the sticker price is fine. I agree that RAID0ing your backups is stupid though.

2x 1TB Raptors costs 520$ at newegg atm, so they are charging 379$ for a connector, a bit of plastic and a fan.