14 DAY TRIAL // Lake Forest, California-based Western Digital, one of the world's leading providers of computer storage solutions, announced today that it had started shipping its next-generation, 2.5-inch notebook hard drives, boasting a large 640GB of capacity. Featuring the industry's standard 9.5mm form factor, the company's new WD Scorpio Blue hard drives have been designed with the latest 320GB-per-platter technology, specifically built for use in mainstream notebook systems. The announcement follows those of Toshiba and Samsung, both of which have recently introduced their latest notebook storage solutions, sporting the same 640GB of capacity.
“WD continues to provide the market with industry-leading capacity points so consumers and business professionals can take advantage of the ever increasing need to store rich media content, such as high resolution photos, HD videos and music,” Jim Morris, WD's vice president and general manager of client systems, said. “Our industry-leading power efficiency, achieved without compromise to performance, is a further example of the added features and value that our customers have come to expect from WD.”
Like its competitors, the new WD Scorpio Blue hard drive has been designed to provide an increase of storage in an energy-efficient form factor. The drive boasts a 5400RPM rotational speed and an 8MB cache size, with an average latency of 5.50ms. The drive has been featured with an SATA interface and a couple of the company's own technologies, including WhisperDrive, ShockGuard and IntelliSeek.
According to Western Digital, its new, 640GB hard drive for notebook computer systems can deliver a 30-percent reduction in overall power consumption, compared with previous generations of WD Scorpio Blue drives, thanks to the implementation of the aforementioned technologies and features. The new model is now shipping through select distributors and resellers and should be available with an MSRP of US$149, accompanied by a three-year, limited warranty.