Competition to the WD Raptors?

[Jim Bancroft]

I'm looking for a fast SATA / SATA II drive, and am surprised that Western Digital's Raptor appears to have the space to itself, as it has for years.

Am I missing a competitor's product or does no one else offer 10,000 RPM drives outside the SCSI arena? I'm genuinely perplexed why no one else has challenged WD in the segment.

 

[tynopik]

some of the new perpindicular drives have faster linear transfer rates
raptors still have the advantage in random access
. . . unless you go to SSD

 

[Lorne]

Its more of a cost affective deal with other competitors, Putting alot of R&D into a limited market may not have been ideal and in generally let Maxtor have it.
You see it also on the opposite side of things, Look at Hitachi, They were realeasing more higher capacity HD's then most others and for alot cheaper price, But would you trust them whole hartidly with your data for a substanual time, Not likely.

There are SCSI drives that can beat the Raptor but along with the Raptor there out of the normal consumers range.

You can pick up a pair of nice 7200 rpm drives and raid 0 them for more speed and capacity for cheaper then a raptor.