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admin
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 Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 11:14 am Post subject: WD Starts Shipping 500GB Scorpio Blue Hard Drive |
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WD Starts Shipping 500GB Scorpio Blue Hard Drive
Friday, September 12, 2008
Posted by: Fran
WD today announced the availability of its Scorpio Blue 500GB hard drive. According to the company, the new 2.5-inch SATA hard drive delivers high-performance with a 3 Gb/s transfer rate, while including proprietary features that make the drive extraordinarily quiet. It is the highest capacity 2.5-inch, standard form-factor (9.5mm) hard drive shipping-to-date. So that basically means the hard drive will fit into your Mac mini or MacBook without any trouble. The WD Scorpio Blue 500GB hard drive has a suggested retail price of $220.
http://www.123macmini.com/news/story/1035.html |
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Weee
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| Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 11:38 am Post subject: |
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I'll take three please! One for my Mac mini, laptop and PS3.  |
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Ben Tex
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| Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 12:17 pm Post subject: |
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I might buy one in a couple months. Hopefully, they will fall a good deal in price. It would be my third WD Scorpio in less than two years. I started out with 160GB.
Oh well, this might be my last post here for a while. Ike is coming and it's huge! He's like the entire size of the Gulf of Mexico.  |
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WheelSpinners
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| Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 2:25 pm Post subject: |
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| So where can you buy one? I don't seem the instock anywhere or even on WD's website. Am I missing something? |
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g5g5
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| Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 4:16 pm Post subject: |
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Is it just me, or does it seem like Western Digital is kicking Seagate, Hitachi and other ass when it comes to 2.5" drives. They seem to be progressing at a much faster rate. That includes higher capacity drives spinning at 7200RPM.
I'm probably going to grab a 320GB from them soon to put in an Asus Eee PC 1000H.
Good luck with the storm Ben! It looks and sounds nasty.
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Bandit Bill
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Joined: 07 Jun 2005
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Location: Edmonton, AB, Canada
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| Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 4:28 pm Post subject: |
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| g5g5 wrote: | Is it just me, or does it seem like Western Digital is kicking Seagate and Hitachi's ass when it comes to 2.5" drives. They seem to be progressing at a much faster rate. That includes higher capacity drives spinning at 7200RPM. I'm going to grab a 320GB from them soon to put in an Asus Eee PC 1000H.
Good luck with the storm Ben! It looks and sounds nasty. |
Right on g5g5, I have the same machine (Asus Eee PC 1000H) 80GB. I kind of like the idea of a 500GB model myself. I sort of promised myself that I won't buy any more internal drives smaller than 500GB. I did however buy a 250GB WD passport (external) for the Asus ($99).
The 1000H will be a snap to upgrade. Have fun. I was wondering if I could put the 250GB drive out of the WD passport into the Asus 1000H. I never looked into the specs of either drives. Anyone know offhand? |
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g5g5
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| Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 6:55 pm Post subject: |
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| Bandit Bill wrote: | | Right on g5g5, I have the same machine (Asus Eee PC 1000H) 80GB. I kind of like the idea of a 500GB model myself. I sort of promised myself that I won't buy any more internal drives smaller than 500GB. I did however buy a 250GB WD passport (external) for the Asus ($99). |
Yeah, I ordered one on Tuesday from Mwave for $449. Asus lowered the price another $100 this week, so I went ahead and ordered one. It's going to be here on Monday. Man, I'm really excited to see it in person. It's going to be a long weekend...
| Bandit Bill wrote: | | The 1000H will be a snap to upgrade. Have fun. I was wondering if I could put the 250GB drive out of the WD passport into the Asus 1000H. I never looked into the specs of either drives. Anyone know offhand? |
It looks really easy to upgrade the hard drive and memory in the 1000H. Just screw that bottom cover off and bingo.
From what I've read, all of the latest WD Passports are using a SATA drive. I can't see why that would be a problem.
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dungeon92
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| Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 8:44 pm Post subject: eh |
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I just like how much easier this is making it to build an even smaller SFF that rivals a desktop from only a couple years ago and consumes only a fraction of the power. If there were just better GPU options that rivaled full size desktops GPUs in performance and at a lower power consumption you could, but until then integrated work for anything I would use a SFF for.
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Bandit Bill
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| Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 9:47 pm Post subject: |
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| g5g5 wrote: | | From what I've read, all of the latest WD Passports are using a SATA drive. I can't see why that would be a problem. |
Thanks for the info. I'll likely throw the 250GB in the Asus 1000h and put the 80GB in the WD Passport. This will be much more practical for my needs. |
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Bandit Bill
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| Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 9:52 pm Post subject: Re: eh |
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| dungeon92 wrote: | | I just like how much easier this is making it to build an even smaller SFF that rivals a desktop from only a couple years ago and consumes only a fraction of the power. If there were just better GPU options that rivaled full size desktops GPUs in performance and at a lower power consumption you could, but until then integrated work for anything I would use a SFF for. |
Sorry to carry this discussion further off the threads topic but...
I'm pretty impressed with the performance and battery life on the Asus 1000H. I set the 1000H to its minimal performance settings and I'm still able to watch videos fullscreen without any jitter. I was able to watch 3 movies on my last battery charge. I haven't been keeping track of the minutes, but I must say my initial impressions are good and the battery isn't even fully conditioned yet. |
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ssfm
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Location: Los Angeles
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| Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 10:02 pm Post subject: Scorpio hard drive |
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| Awesome. Maybe this will put an end to people ranting that the Mac mini needs to have a bigger case to accommodate a 3.5" drive. |
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NRecob
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| Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 10:37 pm Post subject: |
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| I'll stick with my 7200 RPM Hitachis for now..... |
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dungeon92
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| Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2008 1:04 am Post subject: Re: Scorpio hard drive |
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| ssfm wrote: | | Awesome. Maybe this will put an end to people ranting that the Mac mini needs to have a bigger case to accommodate a 3.5" drive. |
For that is too much to hope for for there will be someone wondering why he can't have 1.5TB in his Mac mini after seagate releases theirs.
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Yvan256
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| Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2008 9:38 am Post subject: |
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A Mac mini with a 3.5" drive is all about lowering the computer cost while still offering more storage capacity.
A faster, 500GB 3.5" drive is nowhere near 220$USD (~232.74$CAD).
A local computer store has these prices:
Western Digital 500 GB (16 MB/SATA2-300) 95.95$CAD
Western Digital 640 GB (16 MB/SATA2-300) 157.95$CAD
Western Digital 1 TB (32 MB/SATA2-300) 187.95$CAD
So it's twice as much storage for 80% of the price. It also means Apple could probably lower the price of the Mac mini by ~100$USD.
And it doesn't take a much bigger case to accomodate a 3.5", just look at Time Capsule (same size as an AppleTV, just a tad higher). Such a bigger case could also allow for a mobile ATI or nVidia GPU.
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g5g5
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| Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2008 2:16 pm Post subject: |
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| Bandit Bill wrote: | | Thanks for the info. I'll likely throw the 250GB in the Asus 1000h and put the 80GB in the WD Passport. This will be much more practical for my needs. |
I still think that's a pretty good plan. The prices are comparable, but you're getting a decent looking enclosure to use with the old drive. Let me know how it works out for you. .
| Yvan256 wrote: | | So it's twice as much storage for 80% of the price. It also means Apple could probably lower the price of the Mac mini by ~100$USD. |
I doubt they would lower the price points, but that sounds great. Then again, there are some trade-offs with using a 3.5" drive. Noise and heat being the biggest concerns raised.
| Yvan256 wrote: | | Such a bigger case could also allow for a mobile ATI or nVidia GPU. |
I think they have enough room in there now. It's just a matter of dumbing down the Mac mini and MacBook from the iMac and MacBook Pro. The more expensive GPU would also negate the savings you talked about with the hard drive.
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1.25GHz Mac Mini / 1.8GHz iMac G5 / 2.0GHz C2D Mac mini (2009)
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