Western Digital claims highest capacity mobile drive
Scorpio Blue aimed at 'select' laptops.
By Lucas Mearian, Computerworld (US) | Computerworld US | Published: 18:43, 27 July 2009
Western Digital has launched what it claims is the industry's highest capacity 2.5-inch mobile hard disk drive, the 1TB WD Scorpio Blue.
The Scorpio Blue, which also comes in a 750GB version, uses three 333GB platters to achieve its high capacity. The drive is mainly aimed at the external portable storage market and will be used in Western Digital's recently released My Passport Essential SE Portable USB drive. But the company said the Scorpio Blue will also be used by "select" laptop and small form-factor PCs.
The company did not elaborate on which computer manufacturers are considering using the new drive.
"Our new WD Scorpio Blue drives enable people to take even more of their digital collections with them wherever they go and, realising the value of their data, back up their notebooks on their My Passport drives," said Jim Morris, senior vice president and general manager of client systems at Western Digital.
Both the 1TB and the 750GB drives have 8MB of cache and spin at 5,200 rpm.
WD Scorpio Blue features Western Digital's noise-reducing WhisperDrive technology and ShockGuard, which increases shock tolerance for mobile and notebook applications. The new drive also uses the company's SecurePark, which parks the recording heads off the disk surface during spin up, spin down and when the drive is off to ensure the recording head never touches the disk surface. That should lead to improved long-term reliability due to less head wear and improved shock tolerance.
