WD ships first 2.5" 1TB hard drive

CougTek

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But it's 12.5mm in height instead of the standard 9.5mm.

Announcement

LAKE FOREST, Calif. – July 27, 2009 - WD (NYSE: WDC) today announced two new mobile hard drives that reach new capacity extremes. The highlight is a one terabyte model – the industry's highest-capacity 2.5-inch drive available. Industry-leading 333 GB-per-platter technology enables the new WD Scorpio® Blue™ SATA 2.5-inch hard drives to offer mobile storage device and notebook users an enormous 1 TB capacity. A 750 GB WD Scorpio Blue model also will be available.

The WD Scorpio Blue 750 GB and 1 TB hard drives have a 12.5 mm form factor and are ideally suited for use in portable storage solutions, such as the newly released My Passport™ Essential™ SE Portable USB Drives. Other applications include select notebooks and small form factor desktop PCs, where quiet and cool operation are important. Both WD Scorpio Blue drives deliver high-performance with a 3 gigabits per second (Gb/s) transfer rate.

[...]

Price and Availability
WD Scorpio Blue 750 GB drives (model WD7500KEVT) are available now through select distributors and resellers; the 1 TB capacity (model WD10TEVT) is available now configured into My Passport Essential SE USB drives. The manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP) for the WD Scorpio Blue 1 TB drive is $249.99 USD and for the 750 GB version it is $189.99 USD. WD Scorpio Blue hard drives are covered by a three-year limited warranty.
Mooner will be happy.
 

Fushigi

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Not mentioned but it looks like it'll be 5400 RPM as the other Scorpio Blue models have that spindle speed.

Regarding the 12.5mm height, that would potentially make for a fine entrant as a server drive as some are now only supporting 2.5" units. However, that spindle speed will likely keep it out of enterprise installations.

I can't really see these drives being used in workstations again due to spindle speed and also the higher cost/GB. Power savings won't make up for the added cost. External USB and the odd notebook with a large drive bay are about the only markets I see off the top of my head. Unless they have a plan to sell a ton of the My Passport units, I have to wonder what WD was smoking.
 

LunarMist

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Meh. I just want a 2-platter 640GB drive or whatever is for sale by mid-September. The 3-platter WD drives are too tall. Only Samsung has achieved 3 platters in the 9.5 mm height and it will probably be quite some time before they have a similar 1GB drive.
 

LunarMist

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Regarding the 12.5mm height, that would potentially make for a fine entrant as a server drive as some are now only supporting 2.5" units. However, that spindle speed will likely keep it out of enterprise installations.

Perhaps the humongous notebooks from Alienwares will contain such models as a second drive.
 

LunarMist

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It may be possible to use those drives in some PSDs if the cover is hanging out a bit. It's not worthwhile at the introductory prices, though.
 

Stereodude

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The 3-platter WD drives are too tall. Only Samsung has achieved 3 platters in the 9.5 mm height and it will probably be quite some time before they have a similar 1GB drive.
I don't think I'd trust a 3 platter 9.5mm height drive, and like you I've got no use for a 12.5mm one...
 

LunarMist

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I have three 500GB Samsung M6 drives in good working order. One of the first three drives exhibited bad sectors upon receipt, but its replacement was fine. POH hours are rather low, so I can't vouch for typical usage patterns.
 

sechs

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Western Digital has managed to adapt six-generations-old technology to a form factor that few, if any, can use.

That's genius.
 

LunarMist

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Fujitsu and Hitachi reintroduced the 12.5mm notebook drive only a few years ago. Hitachi was most recent with the (166x3) 500GB drive.
 

LunarMist

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Perhaps someone could make a 4TB SSD Bigfoot, but who would buy it?
 

Mercutio

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Er, the issue with the Bigfoot was a combination of the platter size (more head movement needed to reach the edge of the disk) + low rotational speeds (~4200rpm), neither of which would really be an issue in a 5.25" SSD.

There might actually be a market, somewhere, for a cheap high capacity SSD made from slow-ish low capacity memory modules in a 5.25" half height form factor.
 

LunarMist

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We all remember the Slugfoot, especially at 3600 RPM. :) The issue here is the FF, not the speed. The WD should be OK in that department. Their 2-platter drives are usually faster than similar models from other makers.
 

LunarMist

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That's because they cheat rotational velocities.
And it also means their dies more often.

Huh? Are the 5400 RPM WD drives faster than that, even the notebook drives? Seagate sells 5900 RPM desktop drives now. Are they all the same?
 

Mercutio

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For the longest time, WD shipped "5400rpm" drives that actually spun at ~6000rpm, which often meant their 5400rpm drives were competitive with slow 7200rpm models that were maybe a generation older.

I was a big fan of those drives for a while, until they all decided to die on me over a three or four month period.

I'd be shocked if they aren't still doing the same thing.
 

LunarMist

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For the longest time, WD shipped "5400rpm" drives that actually spun at ~6000rpm, which often meant their 5400rpm drives were competitive with slow 7200rpm models that were maybe a generation older.

I was a big fan of those drives for a while, until they all decided to die on me over a three or four month period.

I'd be shocked if they aren't still doing the same thing.

The WD 3.5" Greenie drives have no RPM. :)
 
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