Western Digital Scorpio Drives

Western Digital divides their internal hard drives into four distinct families :

• the Desktop Storage line - WD Caviar Black, WD Caviar Green and WD Caviar Blue drives,
• the Mobile Storage line - WD Scorpio Black and WD Scorpio Blue drives,
• the Enterprise Storage line - WD VelociRaptor, WD S25 and WD RE4/3 drives, and finally,
• the CE (Consumer Electronics) Storage line - WD AV drives.

Western Digital's Mobile Storage line has two different drive families :

• Western Digital Scorpio Black - for high-performance applications
• Western Digital Scorpio Blue - for big storage capacity

There are two fundamental differences between the two drive families - spindle speed and storage capacity. The Scorpio Black drives spin at 7,200 RPM and are currently limited to a maximum capacity of 750 GB. The Scorpio Blue drives, on the other hand, spin at a more sedate 5,400 RPM but have a maximum capacity of 1 TB. The latest Scorpio Blue drives offer these key features :

• Massive capacity - Storage capacity for 2.5-inch form factor drives with standard 9.5 mm height has arrived at a realm once thought to be impossible - up to 1 TB - giving you all the capacity you need to keep your photos, music and files right there on your notebook.

• Low Power Consumption - State-of-the-art seeking algorithms and advanced power management features ensure low power consumption and long battery life.

• Ultra Quiet - In a notebook drive, silence is golden. WD's exclusive WhisperDrive™ combines state-of-the-art seeking algorithms to yield one of the quietest 2.5-inch hard drives on the market.

• Reliable and rugged - WD's SecurePark™ 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.

• Shock-Tolerant - WD's ShockGuard technology protects the drive mechanics and platter surfaces from shocks. In the new 1 TB Scorpio Blue drive, WD’s ShockGuard™ technology has now improved to a best-in-market 400 Gs shock specification.

• Fast and efficient - Ultra-fast 3 Gb/s SATA interface speed yields performance fit for demanding mobile applications.

When Western Digital launched the WD10JPVT, a 1 TB Scorpio Blue drive, it featured two of their new high-capacity 500 GB 2.5" platters. The drive was thus able to fit standard 2.5" storage bays. If you recall, the original 1 TB Scorpio Blue drive (the WD10TPVT) had a thickness of 12.5 mm, which prevented it from fitting most 2.5" storage bays, thereby relegating it mostly to special applications like portable USB drives.

It was only a matter of time before Western Digital updated their 500 GB Scorpio Blue to deliver faster performance using the new 500 GB platter. Only this time, they went one step further and made the new drive thinner and lighter! This will not matter much for the end-user who's looking for a HDD upgrade but it will help OEMs make thinner and lighter notebooks (Ultrabooks!). Let's take a look at the new 500 GB Scorpio Blue (WD5000LPVT) hard disk drive!

Packaging

Western Digital sent the 500 GB Scorpio Blue (WD5000LPVT) in a relatively large cardboard box, one which is usually used for 3.5" hard disk drives. Inside, the drive is secured in place by a combination of two plastic spacers and a cardboard insert, which also reduce the amount of shock transmitted to the drive during delivery. If you ever intend to mail a hard disk drive somewhere, this is how you should pack the drive.

The WD5000LPVT drive itself is sealed within an anti-static plastic pouch with a sachet of dessicants to keep it dry. All you need to do is just cut open the plastic pouch and slide out the drive. Be sure to ground yourself before removing and handling the hard disk drive as static can damage it. In particular, you should try to avoid touching the exposed PCB located at the base of the drive.

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