Western Digital's new 1 TB Scorpio Blue 9.5mm, 2.5-inch mobile hard drive which launched less than two weeks ago has already been analyzed and benchmarked by the crew over at Hot Hardware. The high capacity notebook drive was pitted against two other spinning disks where it scored respectable numbers across the board.
Specifically, Hot Hardware tested the Scorpio Blue 1 TB drive against a Western Digital Scorpio Black 500 GB drive and a Seagate Momentus 640 GB unit.
"So we're looking at a 5400RPM mainstream consumer-targeted drive here, versus WD's Scorpio "Black" series, which are 7200RPM performance drives for notebooks. However, since areal density per platter has been increased with the 1 TB Scorpio Blue, you'll see that, though its rotational speed is lower, its performance numbers are actually surprisingly good."
Performance was indeed very good, topping the faster-spinning Scorpio Black in SiSoft Sandra's Physical Disk Benchmark, CystalDiskMark and ATTO Disk Benchmark. Hot Hardware concludes that you can't go wrong with this drive if plenty of space is what you are after.
The Scorpio Blue features two internal 500 GB platters and makes Western Digital the first to reach such capacity in a 2.5-inch notebook-friendly design.
I don't think anybody would argue that solid state drives are where the storage industry is headed, but capacity limitations and high price tags have kept them from reaching mainstream success. Speedy spinning drives in large capacities are still a hot commodity since most can't afford to pay more for a storage solution than their entire notebook cost.
As of writing, the Scorpio Blue 1 TB drive retails for $104.99 at Newegg, quite a bit cheaper than the $139 Western Digital announced when the drive was introduced.