WD Readying 20K Drive

Western Digital is in the early stages of developing the first hard drive to spin at 20,000RPM, alleged sources have told Bit-Tech. Fears that solid-state drives may overtake its business have led the company to develop a record-setting hard drive that will share the same design philosophy as the VelociRaptor; the hard drive itself will measure 2.5 inches across but sit in a 3.5-inch enclosure that both cools the disk and cuts down on noise.

The drive is still in mid-development and has no estimated launch date. Western Digital however is likely to aim the drive at both gamers as well as business users that would otherwise consider solid-state technology, which has both very little latency in fetching data and is both quiet and skip-proof compared to rotating storage.

By Electronista Staff