120 GB At 5,400 RPM: Western Digital Scorpio WD1200BEVS

Unlike Toshiba's MK2035GSS, Western Digital's Scorpio WD1200BEVS isn't a milestone release for 2.5 " drives.It is, however, a respectable drive with performance values that are solid, though not chart topping. The drive spins at a rotational speed of 5,400 RPM, uses a SATA/150 interface for transfer rates of up to 150 MB/s, supports Native Command Queuing (NCQ) and has an 8 MB buffer.

Western Digital's published specifications indicate read seek time of 12 ms. Access time (including rotational latency) as measured in our labs for the WD1200BEVS compares very well against other 5,400 RPM drives. We measured 17.6 ms for WD1200BEVS, which isn't top of the list, but is faster than comparable 5,400 RPM drives from Fujitsu (Fujitsu MHV2120BH).

In our tests, we found the Scorpio WD1200BEVS to have an attractive interface transfer rate (as measured by interface bandwidth) of 115 MB/s. Surprisingly, though the Toshiba MK2035GSS packs more capacity at 200 GB, the WD1200BEVS packs more weight. Scorpio tips the scales at 117 g according to Western Digital's published spec, which is 19% heavier than Toshiba's 200 GB drive at 98 g.

Western Digital is marketing the WD1200BEVS as 5,400 RPM drive with power specs that are inline with what 4,200 RPM drives require. Our tests didn't bear out that assertion. From a power perspective, our tests found the WD1200BEVS pulls 1.0 Watts while idle and 3.2 Watts under load.