What's faster than Western Digital's new 10,000-RPM VelociRaptor? How about a drive with platters that spin twice as fast? Surprisingly, Bit-tech has word that Western Digital is actually planning a VelociRaptor model with a 20K-RPM spindle speed.
WD itself hasn't announced anything yet, but Bit-tech claims the drive is in the works and will be WD's weapon against high-speed solid-state drives. The 20K-RPM VelociRaptor will supposedly resemble the current model, with the same 2.5" form factor and custom-built 3.5" enclosure that doubles as a heatsink. WD will use the enclosure for both cooling and noise dampening with the faster model, allegedly resulting in a "silent" drive. Considering the existing VelociRaptor did fairly well in our noise level tests, that's not such an outlandish claim.
Bit-tech claims WD is still working on the noise-dampening housing, but it goes on to say details are "incredibly light at this stage" and that it hasn't learned of a release time frame yet.
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