Western Digital rolls out 1TB notebook drive

Western Digital's Scorpio Blue drive boasts 1TB of memory

Storage firm Western Digital has unveiled its first 1TB notebook drive. The 2.5in WD Scorpio Blue Sata drive is targeted at notebooks, portable storage systems and compact desktop systems.

The company claimed that the new drive offers lower power consumption, lower operating temperatures and better protection from shock and disk damage.

"The convergence of the growing mobile computing and digital media trends produces demand for desktop-like capacities in portable devices," said Jim Morris, senior vice president and general manager of client systems at Western Digital.

"Our new WD Scorpio Blue drives enable people to take even more of their digital collections with them wherever they go and, realising the value of their data, back up their notebooks on their My Passport drives."

Western Digital also unveiled a 750GB version, and has already begun shipping both models at $249.99 (£151) for the 1TB model and $189.99 (£115) for the 750GB.

The releases could revitalise the notebook hard drive market, which has seen much of its spotlight taken away by advances in solid state drives (SSDs). Intel announced a major manufacturing breakthrough last week that could see substantial cuts in the cost of SSDs.

However, due to the higher capacity and lower cost of production, most manufacturers and analysts believe that traditional disk-based drives will remain dominant for the foreseeable future.