Western Digital has announced the latest generation of its 10k RPM Raptor family. With the natty product name of VelociRaptor, the new 300GB drive is the world's fastest SATA drive and is aimed enthusiasts and the enterprise sector.

The new drive (model WD3000GLFS) is a 2.5-inch disk with 300GB of capacity and, along with the blisteringly fast spin speed, has a 16MB cache, a 3.0GBps interface and a claimed seek time of just 4.2ms.

For the desktop space the drive is enclosed in a 3.5-inch chassis, which WD has called IcePack (it has a built-in heat sink to help keep the little devil cool). The drive also incorporates Western Digital's SecurePark technology which parks the heads off the disk surface during spin up, spin down and when the drive is powered off.

For the enterprise sector the drive will be available at a later date without the IcePack feature. The MTBF for the drive is pretty impressive, Western Digital claiming 1.4 million hours, which is probably the best for a SATA drive at the moment.

The recommended price for the WD VelociRaptor 300GB is £250.00.