ED#130 : Q & A With Western Digital (Page 3 Of 4)

12. How did WD achieve 500 GB per 2.5" platter in the new WD Scorpio Blue? Any special or new technology involved?

No, it was achieved by an increase in areal density, partly due to the new 4K sectors in Advanced Format Technology.

13. What about the 400 G shock specification for the new WD Scorpio Blue? How did you achieve that?

The new and slimmer 1 TB Scorpio Blue has a new stainless steel top plate which is much stiffer than the usual aluminium top plate. This reduces the amount of flexing or torquing. It also has a new internal design that is a lot more robust against shock and vibration. You can see that from the new top plate design which is different from what you have seen in previous generations.

14. Will we see the same design being applied to future Scorpio drives?

Possibly, but not necessarily the same design as Western Digital engineers are always improving on such designs. Take for example, the sticker you see at the top of all our drives. It does more than just list some details on the drive - it actually helps to reduce EMI.

We started with a metallized backing and discovered that copper worked best. We later switched to aluminium when copper became expensive and now we are using stickers without a metallized backing and yet does a better job. Basically, improving our drives is an ongoing process, so we'll never know whether this design will make it to the next model, or something better will replace it.

15. When will we expect to see a Scorpio Black (7200 RPM) version of the 1 TB Scorpio Blue?

Western Digital is currently investigating a Scorpio Black version. Generally, we have the ability to spin the same platters at 7200 RPM, but it takes time to qualify the part and decide on when we should release it.

16. What's the current shipping ratio between the Scorpio Black and the Scorpio Blue drives?

We are shipping about one Scorpio Black for every four Scorpio Blue drives. A large number of the Scorpio Blacks actually ship in Apple MacBook Pros or Dell notebooks.

17. Now that WD has 2.5" platters that store 500 GB of data, is it safe to say that WD should also have 3.5" platters capable of storing 1 TB of data?

Yes, it's safe to say that Western Digital has 3.5" platters that can deliver 1 TB of storage per platter. However, we do not currently have any shipping product that uses such a platter.

18. Does this mean that Western Digital is ready to launch 4 TB desktop HDDs?

No. The capability is there but the market is not ready for 4 TB hard disk drives. Right now, we are pushing for greater acceptance of the 3 TB Caviar Green, so there's no need for us to ship a 4 TB hard disk drive at the moment.

Continue on to the last of four pages of Q&As!

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