Laptop Storage: 640GB And 500GB Drives From WD And Fujitsu

Conclusion

WD is aggressively exploring higher capacities. The 640GB Scorpio Blue provides ample capacity and sweet performance for upper-mainstream notebooks and portable storage devices. The two announced 750GB and 1,000GB 2.5” drives won’t fit into most notebook designs due to their 12.5mm height, but they should still raise the bar for compact, high-capacity storage.

Toshiba also lists a 640GB 2.5” mobile hard drive, the MK65GSX series, but so far this has been a paper launch. The reviewed Fujitsu MHA2500CH is an in-house competitor for the Toshiba MK5055GSX.

Capacity-wise, there is no alternative to Western Digital’s 640GB Scorpio Blue. The drive has no real disadvantage and delivers reasonably low power consumption. Its throughput is top notch, and access times are quick. Application performance could clearly be improved, but this is probably why there are 7,200 RPM alternatives like the Momentus 7200.4, which still leads in 2.5” mobile hard drive performance. If you want the fastest possible drive for your notebook, you should go for the Seagate drive or an SSD. The best compromise between capacity and performance is currently WD’s 640GB Scorpio.

Fujitsu’s MHA2500CH offers a 500GB capacity at 5,400 RPM and finds a lot of direct competition from Hitachi (Travelstar 5K500.B), Seagate (Momentus 5400.6), Samsung (Spinpoint M7), and Toshiba (MK5055GSX). All deliver comparable overall performance. The Fujitsu drive is efficient and quick, but it’s not the fastest application drive.