| Article Index |
|---|
| Western Digital Scorpio 320GB SATA-II 2.5inch Hard Drive Review |
| 2 - The Test Setup |
| 3 - PCMark05 |
| 4 - HDTune |
| 5 - Conclusion |
| All Pages |
Western Digital have once again pushed the boundaries of size with their latest notebook drive coming in at a massive (for a notebook) 320GB. Coupled with a Serial ATA-II interface
and 8MB cache, it’s sure to be a good performer. We find out.
The specific model number of the drive we’re looking at today is the WD3200BEVT, part of the ‘Scorpio’ range of drives – well all notebook (2.5”) drives from Western Digital are called Scorpio, so that part’s really irrelevant. The specimen we have here today has the following specifications:
- 320GB Storage Capacity
- Serial ATA-II Interface (3 Gigabit/s)
- 5,400rpm spin speed
- 12ms Access Time
- 8MB Cache Buffer
Unlike some older notebook drives that pushed the capacity of their time and did so by simply adding more platters, and thus increasing the height of the drive, the 320GB Scorpio has the same physical dimensions as every other standard notebook drive, so fitting into any notebook currently or previously on the market shouldn’t be a problem.
To check out this new Scorpio’s performance we’ll be comparing it to two previous Scorpio models, the 250GB (Model#WD2500BEVS) and 160GB (Model#WD1600BEVS), both of which have similar specs of 5400rpm spindle speed, and 8MB cache buffer, however their interface is only 1.5Gbits/s throughput speed, while this new drive is 3GBits/s (Serial ATA-II Standard). We’ll also be comparing it to the Seagate 160GB Momentus 7200.2 Notebook drive, which to date has been the fastest notebook drive we’ve tested. Perhaps the 320GB Scorpio can knock the Seagate out of the top spot thanks to its higher bit density and faster interface speed, despite running at only 5400rpm compared to the Seagate’s 7200rpm, we shall see.
