Western Digital announced that it is now shipping WD VelociRaptor hard drives, the next generation of its 10,000 RPM SATA “Raptor” series of drives.

Designed with an enterprise-class foundation, the new WD VelociRaptor hard drive is modified specifically for PC and Mac enthusiasts and professional workstations. Destined to become the new high-performance favorite of these groups, the WD VelociRaptor hard drive comes packed with twice the capacity and a 35 percent performance increase over the previous generation.

From the bloodlines of the WD Raptor, the WD VelociRaptor hard drive is built with enterprise-class mechanics and packs 300 GB of storage capacity into a 2.5-inch enterprise form factor. The 2.5-inch WD VelociRaptor drive is enclosed in the IcePack, a 3.5-inch mounting frame with a built-in heat sink — a customization that fits the drive into a standard 3.5-inch system bay and keeps this powerful drive extra cool when installed in a high-performance desktop chassis.

“Demand for ever-higher PC performance continues to increase and WD is the leader in this category with the WD Raptor. We created WD VelociRaptor hard drives to lead PC enthusiasts into the next era of PC and Mac storage performance and satisfy their insatiable thirst for computing speed,” said Tom McDorman, vice president and general manager of WD’s enterprise business unit. “The new WD VelociRaptor delivers the greatest performance and reliability of all SATA hard drives currently on the market.”

Built on the performance of the WD Raptor, these 10,000 RPM drives, deliver SATA 3 Gb/s interface, and 16 MB cache. WD VelociRaptor drives are designed and manufactured to business-critical, enterprise-class standards to provide enterprise reliability in high duty cycle environments. The design results in the highest available reliability rating of any SATA drive at 1.4 million hours MTBF.

WD VelociRaptor hard drives will be shipping exclusively through Alienware this month and will be available through the company’s online store and at select distributors and resellers mid-May. Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) for the WD VelociRaptor 300 GB is $299.99 USD.