WD Scorpio Blue 1TB – A Fitting Update

Introduction And Features

Re-sized To Please

With so much digital content flying around the Internet, it may seem odd that many have begun to scramble for more storage space to store gigabytes worth of photos and videos and other downloaded media. Notebook users in particular have been longing for more storage for their portable devices. While this was previously supplemented by utilizing multiple hard drives into notebook design and consumers opting for external storage drives, WD finally pulls out a big one to soothe the woes of mobile warriors. Enter the new WD Scorpio Blue 1TB.

Just to be clear, this 1TB Scorpio Blue is not WD’s first 1TB 2.5-inch drive but rather the second. The first one was introduced around 2009 was labeled with the product code WD10TPVT while this new 1TB drive is labeled as WD10JPVT. The difference between the two drives is their thickness. The WD10TPVT had a non-standard thickness of 12.5mm, which made it difficult to fit into most notebooks. On the other hand, the newer WD10JPVT utilizes Advanced Formatting technology, allowing WD to finally shrink it down to the standard thickness of 9.5mm - the magic number to allow incorporation into any standard notebook HDD slot. WD achieved the 1TB capacity by stacking a pair of 500GB platters.

Features

Aside from their physical differences, the new 1TB highlights lower power consumption rating according to WD’s documentation for both drives. On paper, the WD10TPVT draws 2.5W during read/write operations while the WD10JPVT on the other hand is rated to only draw 1.4W, slashing nearly 50% off of the former’s consumption. It’s also good news for notebooks as it will help in prolonging battery life. WD also rates the WD10JPVT as being quieter than its predecessor with an acoustic rating of 22dBA/25dBA for idle and seek mode respectively, whereas the WD10PTVT is rated at 24dBA/26dBA respectively.

And now we move on to our benchmarks.