WD launches a 1TB 2.5" Hard Drive
by Gary Key on July 27, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Gary's First Looks
Western Digital informed us this morning that it had begun shipping 2.5" mobile hard drives with capacities of 1TB and 750GB, which is an industry first. The Scorpio Blue 1TB hard drive sports an impressive three 333GB platters spinning at 5,200 RPM. Each drive comes with 8MB of cache and a 3Gb/s Serial ATA interface. WD claims acoustic levels of 24-26 dB(A) depending on idle and load conditions. Power consumption numbers are at SSD levels with quoted figures of 0.10W at idle and 2.5W during normal read/write operation.
The one drawback for either drive is that both utilize the 12.5mm form factor instead of the de facto standard 9.5mm. This means the drives are ideally suited for external storage solutions, larger DTR notebook designs, or small form factor desktop systems. However, your mileage will vary depending on the design of your notebook.
The Scorpio Blue 750GB (WD7500KEVT) is "available now through select distributors/resellers" with an MSRP of $189.99. The 1TB Scorpio Blue (WD10TEVT) is also available today, but configured into the My Passport Essential SE Portable USB drive product series. It will be shipping to the retail channel in the near future with an estimated MSRP of $249.99. Each drive carries a limited three-year warranty. We have review samples on the way and will look at their performance in an external enclosure and SFF setup shortly.
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runarB - Monday, August 3, 2009 - link
Don't understand how you can compare two different storage-interfaces with one storage tecnology. I haven't heard alot about SSD-SAS drives, most about SSD-SATA.mschira - Tuesday, July 28, 2009 - link
4000Dollar mobile workstations should have a SSD-drive.It's the single most effective way to speed up a laptop.
M.
Casper42 - Monday, July 27, 2009 - link
These would fit quite nicely in place of Server SAS drives though.Could add 1 of these to an existing server using SAS drives and RAID in order to have a separate backup drive.
And the 12.5mm height won't be an issue there.
Pneumothorax - Monday, July 27, 2009 - link
I'm surprised WD doesn't release a 2 platter version of this drive at the 9.5mm factor. Many of us already max out our 500gb drives and 666gb would be welcome. (I'm using a MBP with a even split between osx & Win7 partitions.mschira - Tuesday, July 28, 2009 - link
Hm. Does anybody know how many platters the 1TB drive has?Could it be 4?
M.
iamezza - Tuesday, July 28, 2009 - link
try reading the articleStarcub - Monday, July 27, 2009 - link
I agree about needing 9.5mm drives. I know I would have trouble fitting 12mm drives even in my external case. That form factor should not exist, it only causes confusion in the market.The0ne - Monday, July 27, 2009 - link
I have to agree. It's a poor decision. I don't know of one laptop (netbook, notebook, etc.) that can use this 12mm drive without some modifications. I could use two of these in my Vostro 17 seeing as it has two slots but there is no chance I will install this new drive and have my laptop sticking out on the bottom.I hope this utterly fails and forces them back to standards that millions of consumers are already on and using.
overstim - Thursday, August 6, 2009 - link
My Macbook Pro 17" (latest model pre-unibody) takes a 12.5" HDD. I installed a WD500GB about a year ago.Souka - Wednesday, July 29, 2009 - link
We have some HP notebooks we use for CADD (they have the pricey quadro cards in them)...they have a 12.5mm bay for the HD.But yeah...most notebooks max out at 9mm...I seem to recall 7mm 2.5" devices being out now...great..another standard....
:)