Western Digital on Wednesday shipped its first 1TB notebook drive thin enough to fit most portables. An upgraded Scorpio Blue measures 9.5mm tall and is thin enough that a MacBook Pro or most other thinner but regular-sized notebooks can take the capacity. The slimming down comes through fitting 500GB per platter and cutting out the third platter that had been needed on earlier drives.
The drive uses Advanced Format to make for the most available usable space as well as 400Gs of shock tolerance and relatively low noise output. It uses a standard SATA link and will work with its full capacity on both Macs and Windows PCs.
Upgraders can buy the drive by itself for $139 at resellers. It’s not clear when PC builders will ship the new Scorpio Blue themselves.
