WD ships slim, energy-efficient hard drive for Ultrabook devices
New 7 mm 2.5-inch Mobile Hard Drive Delivers Lowest Power Consumption in the Industry
12 April 2012
Western Digital, a storage leader, has announced it is shipping the WD Scorpio Blue 7 mm hard drive, the latest addition to its mobile hard drive family and the 2.5-inch drive with the lowest power consumption on the market today. Specified to a best-in-class 400Gs shock tolerance, the new single-platter WD Scorpio Blue small form factor hard drives are available in 500 GB and 320 GB capacities and the drives’ compatibility with industry-standard 9.5 mm slots make them ideal storage options for mainstream notebooks as well as slimmer notebook and Ultrabook devices that require a 7 mm drive height.
“Consumers want thin and light personal computers, but the limited storage capacity of SSD-based notebooks forces them to pick and choose what files to bring from their library,” says Matt Rutledge, vice president and general manager for WD client storage products. “With the release of the new WD Scorpio Blue 7 mm mobile hard drives, WD is able to offer capacity, reliability and data-protection features combined with excellent power management all in a slim form factor perfect for thin and light notebooks.”
“These new drives enable users of Ultrabooks to upgrade their existing hard drives for additional capacity, without needing to replace their entire machine. They also provide a more eco efficient option with up to 20% energy savings. The Scorpio Blue drives ship standard with a two-year warranty for added peace of mind,” says Anamika Budree, WD Country Manager -WD South Africa.
Features of the new WD Scorpio Blue 7 mm hard drives include:
· Low power consumption – Advanced power management features and algorithms optimise the way the drive seeks data, which significantly improves power consumption.
· Shock Tolerance – WD’s ShockGuard technology, now increased to a best-in-market 400Gs shock specification, protects the drive mechanics and platter surfaces from shocks.
· Cool and quiet – In a notebook drive, silence is golden. WD’s exclusive WhisperDrive technology enables quiet performance.
· Reliable – 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.
· Compatibility Tested – WD performs tests on hundreds of systems and a multitude of platforms in its FIT Lab and Mobile Compatibility Lab to give customers confidence that drives will work in specific systems.
“For the South African market, the availability of the WD Scorpio Blue increases the available WD range and gives users further options when selecting hard drives. It also offers local systems integrators greater opportunity to build, upgrade and repair Ultrabooks, a market which has historically been held back by limited component availability,” says Barber Brinkman, Western Digital Sales Manager Benelux and South Africa.
Price and Availability
The WD Scorpio Blue will be available from distributors Pinnacle Africa, Rectron and Drive Control Corporation from the last week of April 2012. The approximate retail price is R650,00 for 320GB and R800,00 for 500GB. Pricing is exclusive of V.A.T.
About WD
WD, a storage industry pioneer and long-time leader, provides products and services for people and organisations that collect, manage and use digital information. The company designs and produces reliable, high-performance hard drives and solid state drives that keep users’ data accessible and secure from loss. Its storage technologies serve a wide range of host applications including client and enterprise computing, embedded systems and consumer electronics, as well as its own storage systems. Its home entertainment products enable rich engagement with stored digital content.
WD was founded in 1970. The company’s products are marketed to leading OEMs, systems manufacturers, selected resellers and retailers under the Western Digital®, WD® and HGST™ brand names. Visit the Investor section of the company’s website (www.westerndigital.com)to access a variety of financial and investor information.
Western Digital, WD, the WD logo and WD Scorpio are registered trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries; WD Scorpio Blue, SecurePark, ShockGuard, WhisperDrive and FIT Lab are trademarks of Western Digital Technologies, Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. Ultrabook is a trademark of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries. All other brand and product names mentioned herein are property of their respective companies. As used for storage capacity, one gigabyte (GB) = one billion bytes; one terabyte (TB) = one trillion bytes. Total accessible capacity varies depending on operating environment.
