Western Digital started the winning of HDD market almost ten years ago. Since that time the company has managed to dramatically improve its manufacturing process and achieve the desirable heights. Its latest HDD solution, codenamed VelociRaptor WD1000DHTZ, deserves special attention thanks to its performance showings and low operational temperatures.



General Peculiarities


Flagship HDD VelociRaptor WD1000DHTZ goes in 1TB volume capacity and is destined for the employment primarily in workstations. It combines high performance along with reliability to become an efficient solution for professional office needs, compact servers, high-end workstations, rendering processes, and for the management of graphics content of high resolution. Upon the whole, this model stands somewhere between the entry level SSDs and winchesters of 3.5 inch form-factor.


Additionally, Western Digital delivers modifications of VelociRaptor which go in more modest capacities (250 GB and 500 GB). …

Plextor, a well-known manufacturer of multifarious consumer electronics, is preparing for the release of its updated high-performance M5 Pro SSD series. Similar to the older version, new drives are targeted basically at business and gaming spheres. The manufacturer does not voice the precise information concerning the release date or pricing guidelines. Nevertheless, the preview of new M5 Pro specifications has already aroused interest of many analysts and average consumers.



According to the preliminary data, M5 Pro SSDs are developed in 2.5-inch form-factor and employ Marvell 88SS9187 Monet controller as the basis of their operation. The updated drives use high-speed SATA III interface to provide for the maximal speed and reliability of all operations. Testing results show that these products are estimated for about 2.4 million hours of trouble-free operation. In addition, Plextor will ensure that all drives are delivered with a 5-year limited warranty.


Plextor M5 Pro …

The line of Haswell-compatible motherboards from Asus has been recently replenished with a new model – Z87-A. The new-comer is supposed to be the most ‘customer-friendly’ board, due to the correlation of incorporated facilities and price: based on the prime chipset (Intel Z87) on Socket LGA1150 platform, this board boasts an extreme functional combined with the price of $150 only. Thus, it might become a perfect solution for a powerful gaming PC.



Motherboard Asus Z87-A is elaborated in ATX form-factor and supports Intel Core i3, i5, i7, Pentium, and Celeron processors. Memory is represented by four DDR3 DIMM slots that are able to run at the maximal 3000 MHz frequency. Their overall capacity might achieve 32 GB. CPU power supply subsystem involves 8 phases; this is quite enough for a full-scale overclocking. Audio facilities are ensured by the integrated 7.1-channel Realtek ALC892 controller. Network facilities are backed by a separate gigabit Realtek 8111GR controller.
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