News

posted on 02 June 2008 19:39

Western Digital has introduced a faster line of 2.5-inch hard drives; the Scorpio Black, spinning at 7,200rpm and holding up to 320GB.

The drives are intended for notebook computers and portable storage products, either sold by manufacturers or through WD's retail channel.

Jim Morris, WD's VP and GM for mobile storage, said: "High performance, high-capacity hard drives are a key ingredient to notebooks as system manufacturers continue to add data-hungry features that allow users to fully benefit from the latest computing technologies."

The new WD drive includes:-
- IntelliSeek technology to calculate optimum seek speeds to lower power consumption, noise and vibration,
- SecurePark to park the recording heads off the disk surface during spin up, spin down and when the drive is off,
- ShockGuard to protect the drive mechanics and platter surfaces from shocks during shipping and handling and in daily operation. This is very usable for portable storage applications.
- Free-fall Sensor to park the heads off the discs if a fall is detected,
- WhisperDrive technology with seeking algoritms helping to produce a very quitet drive.

For comparison other SFF drives include:-

- Fujitsu's MHZ2 250GB and 7,200rpm 2.5-inch drive. It also has a 500GB 2.5-inch drive spinning at 4,200rpm.

- Samsung's Spinpoint MP2 is a 250GB, 2.5-inch, SATA 3Gbit/s interface hard disk drive (HDD). Its SpinPoint M6 drive offers 500GB in its its 2.5-inch form factor and spins at 5,400rpm.

- Seagate’s Momentus 7200.3 2.5-inch drives spin at 7,200rpm and also offers capacity levels up to 320GB,

-Seagate's Savvio 10K.3 300GB, SAS, with a 6Gbit/s SAS II interface and full disk encryption.

- WD's 10,000rpm, 300GB VelociRaptor has a SATA interface 2.5-inch drive inside a 3.5-inch enclosure, with a 1.4 million hour MTBF rating. It has a SAS interface drive in development.

MSRP for the WD Scorpio Black hard drives are up to £149.00 (depending on capacity and features). The drives are guaranteed for 5 years.

^{[Paul Roberts, news editor.]}