Western Digital have extended the capacity of their slim-line models in the Scorpio Blue range with the addition of a 750 GB 9.5mm hard drive. It also uses Western Digital’s ‘Advanced Format’ technology which increases

media format efficiencies, thus enabling larger drive capacities

It also sports WD’s exclusive WhisperDrive tech which

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. So now silence (and longer battery life) is golden.

So more space, less noise, longer battery life and all in a slim-line HDD drive - just what the laptop fans are looking for. Here are the numbers to round out the details on the 750 GB Scorpio Blue

* Model: WD7500BPVT
* Rotational Speed 5,400 RPM
* Buffer Size 8 MB
* Read Seek Time 12.0 ms
* Transfer Rates Buffer To Host (Serial ATA) 3 Gb/s (Max)
* Capacity 750 GB
* Interface SATA 3 Gb/s
* 9.5 mm x 100.2 mm x 69.85 mm
* 0.15 kg
* Idle Mode 22 dBA (average)
* Seek Mode 25 dBA (average)

So the latest addition to Western Digital’s Scorpio Blue slimline internal HDD range sure looks like a winner especially as it’s available at Amazon for only $120. If you’re looking for a hard drive upgrade to your laptop you could do worse than check out this Scorpio Blue offering from Western Digital.

Featured Tags hdd, internal-hdd, laptop_hard_drives, western-digital


Sphere this entry»

The boffins over at SuperTalent have cranked out a 12.5 mm thick 2.5 inch form factor SSD with a capacity of 256 GB. With its SATA-I interface this little sucker will neatly slip into laptops sporting a HD chamber 12.5 mm wide - for those of us with a 9.5 mm wide slot, tough cookies. The drive intriguingly called FSD56GC25H sports the following bits and pieces

* 8 GB to 256 GB capacity options
* Sequential Read Rate of 65 MBps
* Sequential Write Rate of 50 MBps
* Handles shocks up to 1500G and vibrations at 16G
* Plays nicely with all OS

In another twist to this announcement the read and write speeds are nothing to write (forgive the pun) home about being outclassed by the InnoDisk SSD drive we mentioned recently which handles zeros and ones at 110 MBps and 90 MBps respectively. But of course the InnoDisk won’t slot into your laptop without the use of a large hammer.

Overall though we do take our hats off to SuperTalent, but with reservations - we’ll get really excited when they spit out a 2.5 inch drive that will fit all laptops, has super fast read/write speeds and oh yes won’t cost an arm and leg. This little sucker will set you back around US$6K - ouch! Just as well it’s only available to OEM manufacturers so the average Joe won’t be tempted.

Source: PRNewsWire

Featured Tags laptop_hard_drives, SSD, supertalent


Sphere this entry»

Joining the rest of the gang are Fujitsu with their very own 320 GB 2.5 inch HDD, the MHZ2 BH. This little puppy spins around at 5,400 rpm, sports a 3 Gb/s SATA interface and only sucks 1.9 watts when transferring your zeroes and ones.

Fujitsu are primarily aiming the MHZ2 BH at compact desktops, laptops and HDD recorders as the ever increasing consumer need for disk space grows.

There’s currently no price tag around this baby’s neck and the unit won’t be available until Feb 2008 but we can still dream, eh? Here are a few more specs from Fujitsu.

* Average seek time 12ms (read) 14ms (write)
* 300 MB/s transfer rate
* 9.5 x 70 x 100 mm
* 101 g

Source: Fujitsu

Featured Tags fujitsu, hdd, laptop_hard_drives


Sphere this entry»

Western Digital have unleashed their latest 2.5 inch slimline hard drive with a capacity of 320 GB. Anyone looking to increase the disk space on their notebook should prepare their wallets for daylight now. This latest addition to the Scorpio range beats yesterday’s Toshiba announcement by 70 GB whilst only adding ten bucks to the bill with a price tag of US$200.

The HDD is 9.5mm thick so will fit into the slimmest of notebooks and sports WD’s trademark WhisperDrive, ShockGuard and Intelliseek technologies to reduce noise, resist knocks and save power respectively. It spins around at 5,400 rpm, has a transfer rate of 3 GB/s, 8 MB buffer and a 12 ms access time.

If you’re keen check it out at WD.

Featured Tags hard-drive, laptop_hard_drives, western-digital


Sphere this entry»

The boffins at Toshiba have done it again, they’ve managed to squeeze more zeroes and ones onto a HDD through Discrete Track Recording (DTR) technology. Here’s the techie blurb and a pretty picture from Toshiba that for once made sense to me!

So what does this mean to you and me. Well for some reason DTR is best applied to small form factor HDDs, namely the 1.8 and 2.5 inch variations so it means more disk space for your iPod and laptop. Currently the 1.8 inch HDDs max out at 60 GB - Apple slap two of these platters together to make their 160 GB iPod - but with DTR the platters will reach a 120GB capacity allowing Apple to come out with a 240 GB iPod with the same physical size as the 120 GB model. Cool, eh?

1.8 inch HDDs are also used in other devices such mobile PCs, digital vid cams and car nav units, so their capacities should be increased as well. And for those of use who are keeping track of the score Toshiba now squeeze in 333 Gb per square inch on these new drives.

The downside? Well Toshiba doesn’t plan to start mass production of drives boasting the new DTR tech until 2009, so it’ll be a while before a bigger capapcity iPod appears, but at least it’s on the horizon.

Source: Toshiba

Featured Tags hdd, ipod, laptop_hard_drives, toshiba


Sphere this entry»

Bill Watkins, CEO of Seagate, the well-known HDD manufacturer, ‘disclosed’ in an interview to the Wall Street Journal that the company intends producing solid state drives using flash memory next year. No surprises there really, with flash memory capacity increasing almost daily, it’ll soon be on a par with magnetic storage. Of course, flash memory storage is great for your laptop as its lighter and more importantly consumes less power than its positive and negative counterpart.

The thing that struck me as strange about the ‘disclosure’ from Bill was that Seagate already have a hydrid magnetic/flash drive available. Their absurdly named Momentus 5400 PSD already enables laptop users to have a 160 GB drive with the flash/magnetic storage combo.

Come on Bill tell us something we didn’t already know or couldn’t at least guess.

Source: enGadget

Featured Tags flash-memory, hdd, laptop_hard_drives, seagate


Sphere this entry»

Hot news from the boys at Toshiba if you’re looking to squeeze more storage into your laptop without resorting to external methods. They’ve just announced the MK3252GSX, a 320GB 2.5 inch HDD that spins around at 5,400 rpm and is a mere 9.5 mm tall. The reduction in height means that this little sucker will fit neatly into super-slim laptops that require a smaller 2.5 inch HDD than their more portly brothers. Other spec include a 12ms seek time, 3Gbps interface speed and 8 MB of buffer memory. There’s also an optional Free Fall Sensor function to park the heads up once ‘freefall’ is detected.

Of course the big step forward with the MK3252GSX is the added capacity, admittedly blowing away the competition by only a mere 20 GB, but it does spin faster and will slide gracefully into an ultra-slim laptop. Apparently the extra storage is available because

The MK3252GSX uses an improved read-write head and enhanced magnetic layer to boost areal density and achieves a storage capacity of 320GB.

Anyway Toshiba will start knocking this big boy out around November time, so if you are thinking of investing in a new laptop and need plenty of storage it could be worth the wait.

Source: Toshiba

Featured Tags hard-drive, hdd, laptop_hard_drives, toshiba


Sphere this entry»