Not long after Western Digital announced the achievement of the "industry's highest demonstrated density to date using continuous media", the company is coming out with another first.

Western Digital yesterday announced the availability of the new WD Scorpio 320 GB 2.5-inch SATA (Serial ATA) hard drives for notebook computers and portable storage devices. The press release touts it as being the "world's highest capacity 2.5-inch, slim, 9.5mm form-factor hard drive".

The WD Scorpio also features a 5400 spin speed and 12 ms access time together with a maximum transfer rate of 3Gb/s. This capacity was achieved with the perpendicular recording technology, which reinforces magnetic coupling between neighboring bits, achieving higher and more stable recording densities and improved storage capacity.

As expected, the model also boasts the company's proprietary WhisperDrive, ShockGuard and IntelliSeek technologies. Here's what they do. The WhisperDrive combines state-of-the-art seeking algorithms to yield the WD Scorpio 320 GB as one of the quietest 5400 RPM, 2.5-inch drives available. The ShockGuard technology combines firmware and hardware advancements to protect the drive mechanics and platter surface to meet the highest combined shock tolerance specifications required for mobile and notebook applications. The IntelliSeek calculates the optimum seek speeds to lower power consumption, noise and vibration.

"Consumer demands for high capacity storage are stronger than ever. WD is again leading the industry by delivering high quality, high capacity product to the market with the introduction of its new WD Scorpio 320 GB hard drive," said Campbell Kan, vice president of mobile computing business unit, Acer Inc.

"In today's market, new notebook systems are increasingly targeting heavy duty applications in the office and home," said Jim Morris, WD's vice president and general manager of notebook storage. "As system manufacturers improve performance and add data hungry features, high-capacity hard drives become a key ingredient that allows users to fully benefit from the latest computing technologies," he added.

The WD Scorpio 320 GB drives are available at the company's online store for $200.

Toshiba is not far behind Western Digital as the company has recently announced their 250GB 2.5-inch drive, which retails for about $190.