Just last week we previewed Western Digital's brand new enterprise-class drive - the Raptor. The 10,000 RPM hard drive garnered quite a bit of attention, not because of its spindle speed, it's 8MB buffer or its 5 year warranty; the Raptor was thrown into the limelight because it can deliver all the specifications of a high-end SCSI drive, but with a Serial ATA interface.
For years, performance enthusiasts have asked why there hasn't been a 10,000 RPM IDE drive for the desktop, and for years the manufacturers have responded with a lack of demand for such a product.
Western Digital continues to believe that, which is why the Raptor is classified as an enterprise drive and not a successor to their highly successful Caviar line of desktop hard drives. But there are a number of enthusiasts that are using 15,000 RPM Seagate drives in their desktop systems, so the Raptor has a viable user base in a non-enterprise market as well.
