According to several sources close to the hard drive industry, Western Digital is working on a 20,000 RPM Raptor hard drive to combat the increasing pressure from SSD manufacturers.

We have spoken to a lot of people out here in Taipei about this industry’s direction and one thing is becoming clear: SSDs are going to be affordable in the next 12 to 18 months.

Because of this, hard drive manufacturers are starting to get a little worried about what marketshare SSDs might eventually take away from them—especially where performance is more of a concern than storage capacity.

And that’s exactly what Western Digital’s Raptor line is all about.