Users looking to stretch the internal storage capacity of their laptops will be happy to know Western Digital today began shipping a new 2.5" mainstream, hard drive with a maximum capacity of 320GB for $199.

Sporting a 9.5mm profile, the new WD Scorpio SATA drive spins at 5400rpm, has an 8MB cache and 12ms access times. According to the company, it is “extraordinarily quiet while running at cool operating temperatures,” thanks to WD’s exclusive “WhisperDrive” technology which also optimizes the way it seeks for data, significantly improving power consumption.

As demand for high capacity storage continues to grow, manufacturers are stepping up to get their high capacity products to the market. Back in August, Toshiba also announced a 2.5-inch 320GB mobile hard drive which is expected to start shipping before the end of the year.