Storage, 2.5, 320gb, data, scorpio, wd, western digital

Western Digital Ships 320GB 2.5-Inch Drives for Laptops

It's official: you can now buy a 320GB drive from WD for your laptop, and for just $200. The WD Scorpio SATA drive spins at 5400rpm and has a 8MB cache. The press release says it's "extraordinarily quiet while running at cool operating temperatures." I hope that doesn't mean it's extremely loud while running at super high temperatures. The important thing is, this timing coincides with the arrival of Mac's Time Machine and the Windows Home Server, two easy ways to offload your laptop's entire contents, swap out the internal drive, then restore your old image without a lot of tinkering. I know some of you like tinkering, but this is the future. [WD]

9:41 AM on Wed Oct 31 2007
By Wilson Rothman
11,190 views
19 comments

Comments

jimb213 at 09:55 AM on 10/31/07
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neato! That's enough space for me to load the media onto the HD for mobile editing (at least for one project at a time). I wouldn't use it for capturing or intensive work, of course, but it would be nice to edit elsewhere... I can get a little stir-crazy in my home office...
origamimavin at 10:11 AM on 10/31/07
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i likes te tinkering -.-

and i likes tis drive
ossnap at 10:20 AM on 10/31/07
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Another gem from WD and another reason for me to continue buying their products. /me likes!
ultim8fury at 10:29 AM on 10/31/07
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Dammit, only yesterday I bought new internal and external drives for my MBP. You couldn't have just reported it a day earlier ?
metonae at 10:33 AM on 10/31/07
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I wish more higher capacity laptop drives would come out with an IDE interface. Sigh. I guess I'll just have to get with the times. But my laptop isn't that old yet. .
mangochutney at 10:34 AM on 10/31/07
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Very nice!
My plan was to go for the 250GB Scorpio when I buy my MacBook, but bigger is better.
Joseph at 11:25 AM on 10/31/07
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NOOOOOOOOOOOO I JUST FREAKING PUT A 250 IN MY MACBOOK PRO NO MORE THAN 2 MONTHS AGO AND NOW THIS!!! STOP TOYING WITH ME WD!!!
WD40 at 11:48 AM on 10/31/07
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I might just upgrade to this from my 80GB...very nice! Better deal than buying it straight from Dell, maybe even get OSX on my XPS lappy who knows.
Joseph at 12:01 PM on 10/31/07
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@WD40: Why get a Dell? Windows and OSX both run faster on Macbook Pros.
kahri at 12:03 PM on 10/31/07
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I'll wait for someone to actually try it. The last thing my MBP needs is more heat.
chillywilly at 12:34 PM on 10/31/07
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Like ultim8fury and joseph, I just barely did the 250gb upgrade to my MBP (only 3 days ago, too). Oh well. technology moves forward... sometimes too fast.

I'll wait for the 500gb version next year.
chillywilly at 12:49 PM on 10/31/07
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Wow. Comparing the specs of this WD drive to the Samsung I just dropped in my MBP, it looks like it's a lot faster, esp. the SATA interface buffer to host rate (3gbs vs. 150mbs on the Samsung). all of the other specs are pretty close, with the WD slightly edging out the Samsung.
GLaiV3 at 03:09 PM on 10/31/07
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Damnit, I just put that 250gb one with perpendicular writing in my MBP. Now I gotta buy an enclosure and this drive... I want a new hard drive :-(
Evil J at 06:06 PM on 10/31/07
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Quick question... this works in PS3s, no?
johnnyabnormal at 07:51 PM on 10/31/07
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Connectedness Index: 159
Brought to you by Acura TSX

Damn. This just might be the perfect solution to the Seagate drives that are crapping out lately.
johnnyabnormal at 08:34 PM on 10/31/07
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Connectedness Index: 159
Brought to you by Acura TSX

Also, since I'm not a hard drive expert: What is the most important factor to consider when looking for good performance....5400 vs. 7200 rpms, seek time, transfer rate?
BarkoNorwang at 09:39 PM on 11/01/07
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Ummm just went onto WD's site and I'm seriously considering picking up one of these for my Macbook Pro, but I'm not seeing any kind of BUY IT button... Are they shipping the drives now or am I just totally missing something...
kydrice at 06:13 AM on 11/02/07
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@EvilJ:
yea works on PS3s great deal.
glebec at 12:54 PM on 12/13/07
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Oh good... I just got a MBP (Oct. 1) with 160GB 7200rpm and after the fact I realized that wasn't going to be enough in the long term.

Now the question is, when to upgrade (and cut off Apple support)?