Western Digital Now Ships 500GB Notebook Hard Drives

Western Digital, one of the leading manufacturers of storage devices, has announced today that it has started shipping its WD Scorpio Blue 2.5-inch hard drives designed for notebooks. This means that notebook users will be able to benefit from a maximum storage capacity of 500GB. The latest hard drives from Western Digital enable notebooks to provide users with a storage capacity close to what you generally find on high-end desktop computer systems.

“WD continues to provide the mobile market with high-capacity storage everywhere consumers and business professionals travel,” said Jim Morris, WD's vice president and general manager of notebook storage.

“Notebook system manufacturers continue to improve performance, while adding data-hungry features. The WD Scorpio Blue 400 GB and 500 GB hard drives provide the capacity needed to maximize the latest features and functions available in today's notebook computers, while relying on WD's exceptional reliability.” Morris explained.

The new WD Scorpio Blue HDDs come to further expand the company's range of 2.5-inch, 5400RPM hard drives with capacities ranging to a maximum of 500GB. The new drives can be offered in 80GB, 120GB, 160GB, 250GB, 320GB and 400GB flavors, and incorporate the industry-leading 250GB per-platter technology, which enables Western Digital to offer higher capacity notebook storage.

WD Scorpio Blue drives deliver a high-performance transfer rate of 3 GB/s, and also feature the company's WhipserDrive, ShockGuard and IntelliSeek technologies. These features have been added with a faster performance hard drive, which can deliver a better lifetime and more protection for your data, in mind.

Regarding pricing and availability, Western Digital has announced that the WD Scorpio Blue drives with 500GB of storage space are now available through select distributors and resellers, for a manufacturer's suggested retail price of US$219.99, while the company's 400GB model is also available for a MSRP of US$189.99. All these drives also come with a three-year limited warranty.