Western Digital today announced it is now shipping its new line of WD Scorpio Black 7200 RPM 2.5-inch SATA (Serial ATA) hard drives for high-performance notebook computers and portable storage devices.

Available in capacities up to 320 GB, WD Scorpio Black hard drives are designed with ruggedness, reliability, and data-protection features that actively monitor and protect data.

The WD Scorpio Black family of hard drives is destined for use in OEM notebook systems as well as by users who want to upgrade the speed and performance of their current notebook system. As one of the fastest and most efficient hard drives on the market, WD Scorpio Black drives combine desktop-class 7200 RPM spin speed with a SATA 3 Gb/s interface and 16 MB cache to deliver maximum notebook performance.

“In today’s busy and on-the-go lifestyle, notebook systems play an increasingly pivotal role in the home office and are relied upon to efficiently run sophisticated applications,” said Jim Morris, WD’s vice president and general manager of mobile storage. “High performance, high-capacity hard drives are a key ingredient to notebooks as system manufacturers continue to add data-hungry features that allow users to fully benefit from the latest computing technologies.”

The Scorpio Black exclusive features include IntelliSeek technology that calculates optimum seek speeds to lower power consumption, noise and vibration, SecurePark technology that parks the recording heads off the disk surface during spin up, spin down and when the drive is off and WhisperDrive technology which combines state-of-the-art seeking algorithms that result in one of the quietest 2.5-inch drives on the market. As an added layer of protection, if the drive (or the system it’s in) is dropped while in use, WD’s free-fall sensor detects that the drive is falling and, in less than 200 milliseconds, parks the head off the disks to help prevent damage and data loss.