“That’s a really catchy title, isn’t it? Who wouldn’t want to turn a “slow” 7,200 RPM hard disk drive into a super-fast 10,000 RPM Western Digital VelociRaptor? After all, the 300 GB model of the much- vaunted HDD speed king retails for US$ 199.99, while a 1.5 TB Barracuda 7200.11 only costs US$ 109.99. Imagine getting the performance of the VelociRaptor with the capacity and price of the Seagate Barracuda!The guys at TechwareLabs came up with an apparently nifty way to “transform” the 1.5 TB Barracuda 7200.11 hard disk drive into a VelociRaptor-killer. But before you go rushing out to grab yourself a 1.5 TB Barracuda 7200.11 hard disk drive, please note that their mod basically involves crippling the Barracuda…”
Here are some more Storage reviews from around the web:
- 64 GB Solid State Drive Round-Up @ Hardware Secrets
- GIGABYTE SATA 6G Update – RAID 0 Just How We Like It @ Tweaktown
- Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB SATA 6Gbps @ Tweaktown
- Crucial RealSSD-C300 SATA-III 6Gbps SSD @ Benchmark Reviews
- Kingston SSDNow V+ 128GB Solid State Disk @ TechwareLabs
- OCZ Vertex 2 Pro, Sandforce Powered SSD Preview @ HotHardware
- Cooler Master Xport 251 @ techPowerUp
- Using a Thumb Drive to Install Windows 7 @ Techgage
- Sunbeam Airbox 3.5-inch External Hard Drive Enclosure Review @ ThinkComputers
- Synology DS210j – 2 Bay NAS Review @ XtremeComputing
- Synology Disk Station DS410j NAS @ TechwareLabs
- Silverstone DS221 Dual HDD Raid Enclosure @ Pro-Clockers
- Kingston MobileLite G2 USB Card Reader Review @ Legit Reviews
Evolution in action, watch a Barracuda become a Velciraptor

Tech ARP stumbled upon a nice trick at Techware Labs and improved it. The initial mod involved taking a 1.5TB Barracuda and changing the LBA table to make the drive think it is only 300GB, which made it about 30% faster that a Velocirapter in their testing. TechARP simply repartitioned the drive into a 300GB and a 1.2TB partition. The 300GB portion achieved the speed increase and using a partition means that you don’t loose out on the storage space you paid for in the first place.