Western Digital on Wednesday unveiled its latest Scorpio Blue 2.5" hard disk drive (HDD) that uses the latest-generation platters and can store up to 1TB of data. The new drives are intended for notebooks which require massive amount of local storage, but can be installed into other industry-standard devices.

The new WD Scorpio Blue (WD10JPVT) is based on two 500GB platters that are made using the latest-generation perpendicular magnetic recording technology with whopping ~636Gb/inch² (636Gb per square inch) areal density. The HDD has 5400rpm spindle speed, uses Serial ATA-300 interface, sports 8MB buffer and 5.5ms average latency. Since the drive utilizes only two platters, not three like its predecessor, it can fit into industry-standard 2.5" bay with 9.5mm height. The hard drive consumes 0.59W in idle mode, 1.4W in read/write mode and 0.18W in sleep/standby modes.

"With the release of the 1 TB WD Scorpio Blue notebook drive in a 9.5mm package, WD is able to offer the greatest storage capacity available for use in portable computing environments. Mobile users no longer need to choose maximum capacity over thin and light, WD is ready with storage options, achieved without compromise to performance and reliability, that prove ideal for mobile digital devices of all kinds including PC and Mac notebook computers; external storage; and digital media players," said Matt Rutledge, vice president and general manager of client storage for WD.

Earlier this Summer Samsung Electronics' HDD business unit also released a 2.5" HDD with 9.5mm height based on two platters.

Shipping now through select distributors and resellers, the WD Scorpio Blue 1 TB (model WD10JPVT) hard drives are covered by a three-year limited warranty and have a manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP) of $139.

Tags: Western Digital, HDD, Samsung