New WD Raptor 300 GB ultrafast

that is a 2.5" drive for a MBP or MB, although it ships with a mount for 3.5" slots.

Hmm... I can't tell how much work it will take to mount it on a Mac Pro... Who is going to try?

For a variety of reasons they opted for a smaller platter size and thus the drive itself is a 2.5" drive, but the heat it gives off has to handled by an additional enclosure that ultimately has it fit in a 3.5" bay. This drive will slide right into a MacPro and you will not be able to use it with a laptop.

Will it work in a Mac Pro with no modification required?



On Tom's Hardware he makes a comment:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/HDD-SATA-VelociRaptor,1914-14.html

"The only drawback we found is the inability to drop the VelociRaptor into existing 3.5" hot swap bays, because the SATA and power connectors of the VelociRaptor aren’t located at the standardized position, which would be necessary for seamless upgrades."

"The only drawback we found is the inability to drop the VelociRaptor into existing 3.5" hot swap bays, because the SATA and power connectors of the VelociRaptor aren’t located at the standardized position, which would be necessary for seamless upgrades."

Click to expand...

Wow, huge deal killer for Mac Pro users.... Why would they alienate all Mac Pro users? Very disappointing.

this drive is pointed squarely at gamers. most gamers are not mac users for obvious reasons.

The people at WD probably don't even know that the Mac Pro doesn't have interface or power cables for internal SATA drives...

it is a bummer, though.

That would make a heck of a boot drive.

to clear up some confusion for the masses:

it is a 2.5" drive, but it is not intended for laptop applications...it is 2.5"-sized platters for various manufacturing reasons, but it is NOT a laptop drive. the heat fins may be removable, but they aren't really optional. Also, the drive is 15mm tall, not the usual 9mm found in most 2.5" laptops...in fact there aren't going to be a lot of laptops that could physically even fit the drive inside. It WOULD make a great eSATA external drive, though! Too bad it's only 300gb.

they basically skipped a generation with the raptor...if they had been keeping up with regular drives, the top-end raptor should be down to about 50-70 cents per GB...at this speed, size, and price, this will be hard-pressed to beat out SSD drives in a year or so. I would expect the NEXT Raptor to be the last one unless there is some major innovation in the next year where spinning drives are concerned...

benpatient said:

The people at WD probably don't even know that the Mac Pro doesn't have interface or power cables for internal SATA drives...

Click to expand...

The Mac Pro does have interface and power cables for standard SATA drive. Unfortunately this is not a SATA drive: it's a 2.5" drive in a sled so the power and interface cables are not in the correct (as defined by the SATA standard) places for 3.5" drives. So this will not fit in a Mac Pro.

For those who are just dying to use this drive.

Hook it up to extra SATA Ports and place it in the lower optical drive bay.

Shouldn't pose too much of a problem.

Tracer

I imagine that it should be pretty straightforward to build your own wiring harness and take the drive off the sled and onto a custom bracket. But then again, why bother?

You could also go eSATA with it I suppose, but I'd rather have a couple 1TB drives.

Thiol said:

Hmm... I can't tell how much work it will take to mount it on a Mac Pro... Who is going to try?

Click to expand...

I'm not going to be the first to try, but I bet one could make it fit in the 5.25-inch bay (the one reserved for the second optical drive). There exist 5.25-inch to 3.5-inch converters. You'd need to use some SATA and power cables and run them to the extra power and SATA motherboard connectors (the ones for SATA optical drives).

Alternatively, you could remove the heat-sink and use a 3.5-to-2.5 inch converter (and some really short cables), but you better have some sort of cooling plan.

Bear in mind that 2.5 inch server drives are not the same as 2.5 inch laptop drives.

Well, you don't NEED to have the drive in one of the sleds.

You could have it somewhere else connected directly to a SATA port.

Remember, this is the fastest sata drive on the planet!

benpatient said:

this drive is pointed squarely at gamers. most gamers are not mac users for obvious reasons.

Click to expand...

Just curious, how do you figure it's aimed squarely at gamers?

And yeah, like you said, it won't fit in laptops... it's way too tall, even for, as Tom's mentioned, the bigger notebooks that often carry 3-platter 12.5" high drives.

Sorry folks

Really though, I can't imagine it would be terribly difficult to modify your Mac Pro... rigging it with your own version of a 2.5" drive holder. Probably would be a pain though.

This will take care of the problem:

http://www.maxupgrades.com/istore/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&product_id=158

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/tips/MacPro_HD_in_optical_drive_bay/MacPro_HD_in_OpticalBay.html

sblasl said:

This will take care of the problem:

http://www.maxupgrades.com/istore/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&product_id=158

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/tips/MacPro_HD_in_optical_drive_bay/MacPro_HD_in_OpticalBay.html

Click to expand...

I don't really see how. They are designed for desktop 3.5" drives.

"Western Digital said the new drive will be shipped with a new 3.5-in. mounting frame, called WD IcePak, which enables the hard drive to fit into standard workstation slots."

robbieduncan said:

I don't really see how. They are designed for desktop 3.5" drives.

Click to expand...

sblasl said:

"Western Digital said the new drive will be shipped with a new 3.5-in. mounting frame, called WD IcePak, which enables the hard drive to fit into standard workstation slots."

Click to expand...

Which, if the pictures from the link at the start of this thread, are to be believed doesn't alter the issue of the fact the drive uses laptop style power and interface connectors in a non-standard location.

That is correct as it relates to the "power and interface connectors", the size form factor is not at issue here. You can still use the optical bay adapters to hold the drive(s) and use the appropriate "power and interface connectors" cables to make the connections.

robbieduncan said:

Which, if the pictures from the link at the start of this thread, are to be believed doesn't alter the issue of the fact the drive uses laptop style power and interface connectors in a non-standard location.

Click to expand...

I am so getting one and putting it in my MP, there will be a way to make it work I am sure.

So, current summary. These new drives will not plug and play into the standard four hard drive bays. With a little adapting, however, one could fit in the fifth bay for the optical drive. Man, I wish someone could get their hands on one to test this.

Wow, very cool news. While this first release may not be P&P for MP's right now, they may release another version? Perhaps even an eSATA version of the MyBook, or something. I could see using it for video editing.

robbieduncan said:

Which, if the pictures from the link at the start of this thread, are to be believed doesn't alter the issue of the fact the drive uses laptop style power and interface connectors in a non-standard location.

Click to expand...

The drive does NOT use laptop-style power and interface connectors. They are regular desktop HDD adapters, but in a non-standard position because they are mounted on a 2.5 inch drive, which in turn is mounted centered in a 3.5 inch heatspreader.

If one wants to use this drive for the Mac Pro, all one needs to do is get some low profile SATA cables to route from the motherboard and up into the optical bay, as well as a standard molex to SATA power cable. I had both in a box of extra parts and am enjoying the stock WD 320 drive in the lower optical bay.

And someday soon that WD 320 may find itself evicted in lieu of a velociraptor....

Why not just make a standard size "new" Raptor? Perhaps 500gig?

JesterJJZ said:

Why not just make a standard size "new" Raptor? Perhaps 500gig?

Click to expand...

Because the business/server market is now moving towards the 2.5" form factor.

Remember, historically 10,000 RPM drives aren't desktop drives... they're professional drives, and this raptor is a "Professional" drive. They outperform any 7200 RPM drive in I/O file performance... and this one outperforms the old Raptors by 20-30% in that area. File servers benefit from this.

It's possible now with the advent of perpendicular recording to have 2.5" drives large enough to be a viable server option (remember when they topped out at 60 GB? Then they hit 100 GB, and suddenly skyrocketed to 320 GB +).

Smaller drives have lower access times since there's less surface area. Performance/watt is also now a consideration.

I agree though, 3.5" would be nice, but given how slowly WD churns out new Raptors... =\