Western Digital WD2500BEVS Scorpio

Western Digital has pulled off a significant coup with its 250GB Scorpio notebook hard drive; the device is the current capacity champion. (Fujitsu has also announced a 250GB drive but has not shipped it yet.) Packing 250GB into two platters, the areal density of the Scorpio easily outstrips that of the other hard drive reviewed here—Seagate’s two-platter 160GB Momentus drive.

While 250GB isn’t impressive next to 1TB desktop drives, it’s more than enough to keep most notebook users happy. But to get that storage, you give up some performance. Though it didn’t post terrible numbers, the 5,400rpm Scorpio lags behind the 7,200rpm Momentus. The Scorpio trailed Western Digital’s drive by up to 22 percent in our benchmark tests. Access times were also off by 25 percent against the Momentus due to the Scorpio’s spindle speeds.

Don’t read this review as too negative though. The Scorpio isn’t pokey, it’s just that the Momentus is faster and the Mtron is in an entirely different league. But if you crave maximum capacity from a notebook drive, the Scorpio has that, while offering decent performance as well.