Western Digital on Monday announced that it’s shipping its 250GB Scorpio, a 2.5-inch hard disk drive mechanism intended for notebook computers. It costs $199.99.
The drive uses perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) to achieve the high bit-density. Western Digital has also employed special features to make the drive quiet, use less power and run at cooler temperatures. It spins at 5400 RPM.
Features unique to the drive include “ShockGuard” firmware and hardware to protect the drive from failure if it’s jolted and “IntelliSeek,” which calculates optimum seek speed of the read/write head actuator, to help reduce noise and power.