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 320 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 - Whether they are in an external drive or a notebook computer, WD Scorpio Blue SATA drives continue to offer the highest capacity for space-hungry operating systems with plenty of room left over for photos, music, and video. A slight increase in overall drive height (750 GB and 1 TB only) has driven storage capacity for 2.5-inch form factor drives upwards to a realm once thought to be impossible.*

• 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 ShockGuardâ„¢ 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.

While Western Digital has had a 1 TB Scorpio Blue drive (the WD10TPVT) for some time now, it is a 3-platter design with a 31.5% thicker case, making it incompatible with most 2.5" storage bays. It also spins at a slower spindle speed of 5,200 RPM with twice the spin-up time. As such, it was only used in special applications like portable USB drives.

On 25th July, 2011, Western Digital launched the true 1 TB mobile hard disk drive model, the 1 TB Western Digital Scorpio Blue (WD10JPVT). It features two new 500 GB high-density platters, which allows Western Digital to finally deliver 1 TB of storage capacity in the standard 2.5" form factor. Let's take a look.

Packaging

Western Digital sent the 1 TB Scorpio Blue (WD10JPVT) 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 WD10JPVT 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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