Yes and No. With WD coming out with the new 320 G and 640 G AAKS, it changes things a little. For a hard drive for the OS or page file, the answer is yes. In those 2 instances, the ability to find the information fast and transfer small amounts of information fast is what is critical. Now for a game drive, music, videos, or any application transfering large blocks of data, the new WD3200AAKS or WD6400AAKS is better. They still have the standard drive 16ms seek time, but they are able to transfer 92 to 96 MB/sec avg vs the raptors 72 to 76 MB/sec avg. Now if you throw Raid into the picture it changes things too but for a basic drive system there is the info. Not sure about the information of other drive manufacturers since I only use WD.
Depends on the specs you consider important in your definition of fast.
The raptor access times can't be matched, although the platter density of the aforementioned drives does allow for decent/fast transfer rates. Until something faster comes out, I'll stick by my raptors.
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