Tuesday, March 30th 2010
WD Leads in 2.5-inch Areal Density with New 750 GB Notebook Hard Drives
WD today announced that it is now shipping 750 GB of storage capacity in a standard-height 2.5-inch notebook hard drive -- the industry's highest capacity to date in this form factor. Designed for mainstream notebook computers, the WD Scorpio Blue 750 GB hard drives utilize WD's leading 375 GB-per-platter areal density and Advanced Format technology.
An ideal solution for notebook computers and other portable devices whose users require extreme capacities in a small package, extended battery life and cool, reliable operation, the WD Scorpio Blue 750 GB hard drive is also one of the quietest 2.5-inch drives on the market.
"WD continues to lead the market with capacity points that enable consumers and business professionals to store large quantities of data and rich media content," said Jim Morris, WD's senior vice president and general manager of Storage Products. "Our leading power efficiency, achieved without compromise to performance, is another example of the added features and value that our customers have come to expect from WD."
Features of the WD Scorpio Blue include:
WD Scorpio Blue 750 GB (model WD7500BPVT) hard drives are shipping now through select distributors and resellers. Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) for the WD Scorpio Blue 750 is $149.00 USD. WD Scorpio Blue hard drives are covered by a three-year limited warranty. More information about WD Scorpio Blue mobile hard drives may be found here.
An ideal solution for notebook computers and other portable devices whose users require extreme capacities in a small package, extended battery life and cool, reliable operation, the WD Scorpio Blue 750 GB hard drive is also one of the quietest 2.5-inch drives on the market.
Features of the WD Scorpio Blue include:
- Advanced Format technology - Technology being pioneered by WD and adopted by other drive manufacturers to increase media format efficiencies, thus enabling larger drive capacities.
- WhisperDrive - WD's exclusive WhisperDrive technology combines state-of-the-art seeking algorithms to yield one of the quietest 2.5-inch hard drives on the market. These algorithms also optimize the way a drive seeks for data, which significantly improves power consumption.
- ShockGuard - Leading-edge ShockGuard technology protects the drive mechanics and platter surfaces from shocks.
- SecurePark - WD's SecurePark technology parks the recording heads off the disk surface during spin up, spin down, and when the drive is off. This ensures the recording head never touches the disk surface resulting in improved long term reliability due to less head wear, and improved non-operational shock tolerance.
- Fast and efficient - Ultra-fast 3 gigabits per second (Gb/s) SATA interface speed yields performance fit for demanding mobile applications.
- Tested for compatibility - WD performs extensive tests on hundreds of systems and a multitude of platforms in its FIT Lab and Mobile Compatibility Lab to give our customers confidence that our drives will work in their systems.
WD Scorpio Blue 750 GB (model WD7500BPVT) hard drives are shipping now through select distributors and resellers. Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) for the WD Scorpio Blue 750 is $149.00 USD. WD Scorpio Blue hard drives are covered by a three-year limited warranty. More information about WD Scorpio Blue mobile hard drives may be found here.
25 Comments on WD Leads in 2.5-inch Areal Density with New 750 GB Notebook Hard Drives
Already at newgg for $110, looks like I've got something new for my PS3.:rockout:
I got a little scared when newegg listed it as 12.5mm, but that must just be a typo on newegg's part, because WD lists it as 9.5mm.
Not a bad price at all for these
I just learned that the PS3 has a SATA connection, not SATA 2 (3gbps)
www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=112235
edit: ah i see, this uses two platters, toshibas used 4
I would like to upgrade my stupid 80GB HD Sata1 2,5" Hitachi to some bigger and faster drive like this!
Thanks for any insight
EDIT:
ICH 7 M <-> i945PM 1.5Gbps SATA 1 interface inside my Laptop
i agree with that, laptops are cheaper and used more these days but hard drive comparison, or any of those benchmarks are rare....
maybe no one upgrades the harddrive or at least cares for it.
i am now a bit confused if it's better to got with the 320GB Black series
One thread of interest to you might be here: forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=101038&page=2
Two smaller 7200RPM drives in RAID0 vs. One larger 500GB 5400RPM Drive. The results were a little surprising, with the seak times on both being extremely close. What was even more interesting, though I didn't get the chance to post this in the thread, was when I short stroked the 500GB drive, it was faster than the two 7200RPM drives in every way. Average/Max/Min transfer rates were all faster, along with much better access times.
There was another interesting thead, though I can't find it now, all about desktop drives. A single 5900RPM Seagate 1.5TB drive had better access times then both a Samsung F3 500GB and a Seagate 7200.12 500GB, and the average transfer rate was only 10MB/s slower than a Western Digital Black 640MB.
So platter density can make a huge difference.
Oh, and I don't believe it is accurate that laptop drives spin down to 4200RPM on battery power at all, in fact I know that isn't true. Laptop drives do have power saving feature, they will spin down completely when not in use and park the heads, but they don't adjust the spindle speed, they either run at 5400RPM constantly or 7200RPM constantly, and that can make a huge difference in battery life. My netbook for instance, gets about 30 minutes less battery life with a 7200RPM drive, which is why I switched back to a 5400RPM drive, there no real noticeable difference in performance either.You mean most things, right?I just might in the near future.
My old DELL XPS laptop has in bios an option to throttle down the laptop from 7200rpm to 4600rpm in order to reduce noize, power and save power when running on battery. And the performance is way worst on the slow mode...Tried it, didn't like it. That's why I stay away from 5400rpm drives.
Tnks for the links, btw.