Western Digital releases first perpendicular hard drive
Western Digital has finally released their first hard drives based on perpendicular drive technology. The 160GB 2.5-inch Scorpio drive has a SATA 150 interface with 8MB cache size and 5400RPM spindle speed. This brings Western Digital in line with similar PMR (perpendicular magnetic recording) offerings from Hitachi and Seagate. Unlike traditional drives, PMR allows each data bit to magnetized and stored vertically on the platter vs linear. This allows for improved platter density and storage sizes.
MSRP of the drive is expected to be $179 and should be available shortly through Western Digitals online store.