Western Digital Fits 1TB On Two Platters For The New Standard Size Scorpio Blue HDD

Western Digital is now shipping a new hard drive and you’re going to love it. The Scorpio Blue  is a 2.5-inch 5,400rpm drive that manages to store 1TB of data over just two platters.

That means, unlike previous 2.5-inch 1TB drives, this boy will fit into any standard notebook. The old version spanned 1TB of data over three platters, resulting in a 12.5mm thick casing, which was perfect for small external storage drives but not so much for notebooks. The new one is only 9.5mm thick.

Both Seagate and Samsung previously announced similar 2-platter 2.5-inch hard drives. Seagate has yet to release it as a standalone drive though, instead sell it as an external drive in the FreeAgent GoFlex line. Samsung’s SpinPoint M8 was announced last month and ultimately destined for notebook use. But since that drive is not shipping , the $140 Scorpio Blue is the first, internal 2-platter 1TB hard drive to hit the market.