There's a new kid on the high-density notebook hard drive block. Western Digital says it has begun to ship its 320GB Scorpio hard drive, a 2.5" Serial ATA model that squeezes 320GB of capacity on platters that spin away at 5400RPM. The drive comes outfitted with 8MB of cache, supports 300MB/s SATA transfer speeds, and is rated for read seek time of 12ms. Western Digital cites noise levels of 24dBA when the drive is idle and 26dBA when it's seeking.
WD claims the new Scorpio is "the world's highest capacity 2.5-inch, slim, 9.5mm form-factor hard drive." However, that doesn't appear to be strictly true. Toshiba has already unveiled a 2.5" drive with similar specifications, the MK3252GSX, and Alienware began to ship notebooks outfitted with dual 320GB hard drives from Samsung last month.
The 320GB Scorpio bears a WD3200BEVT model number, and WD quotes a price tag of $199.99 for the new drive on its website. The site says it's currently out of stock, though.
