120GB Scorpios are coming out soon

[Shining Arcanine]

Stores are leaking the specifications of Western Digital's new drives that they'll announce next month. Here is one store in France:

http://www.osinet.fr/code/osicaddy.asp? ... ULK+DRIVES

I wish they'd equip the Scorpios with 16MB caches like they're equipping the new Raptors (which aren't released yet) and Caviars with. Heck, it would be nice if they'd go a step or two higher and equip them with 32MB caches. That would bring them close to the Caviars' level of performance. I wonder if we can expect to see platter density increases like we should see on the new Raptors.

[jackylman]

I wish they'd equip the Scorpios with 16MB caches like they're equipping the new Raptors (which aren't released yet) and Caviars with

We're talking about a laptop drive here. I'd settle for a SATA edition so I could get rid of this adapter and IDE cable.

[JazzJackRabbit]

You'd still need power adapter, wouldn't you?

[jaganath]

I'd settle for a SATA edition so I could get rid of this adapter and IDE cable.

Me too. SATA editions of 2.5" notebook drives do exist, but they are still very expensive per GB, especially when compared to 3.5" drives.

You'd still need power adapter, wouldn't you?

No. AFAIAA, the SATA data and power connectors are the same for 3.5" and 2.5" hard drives.

[NoizEnvader]

You'd still need power adapter, wouldn't you?

No. AFAIAA, the SATA data and power connectors are the same for 3.5" and 2.5" hard drives.

Can someone please confirm this.
I'm aslo looking at making the move to 2.5".

[jaganath]

Can someone please confirm this.
I'm aslo looking at making the move to 2.5".

I'm sure this was mentioned in one of MikeC's "The Future Is 2.5" Wide" articles.

Serial ATA

The Serial ATA standard also specifies a power connector sharply differing from the four-pin Molex connector used by PATA drives and many other computer components. Like the data cable, it is wafer based, but its wider fifteen-pin shape should prevent confusion between the two. The seemingly large number of pins are used to supply three different voltages if necessary — 3.3 V, 5 V, and 12 V. The same physical connections are used on 3.5 inch and 2.5 inch (notebook) hard disks.

EDIT: found it-

SPCR Review of WD Scorpio 80GB

Because SATA connectors are small enough to fit on the MHT2080BH, it can also be plugged directly into a desktop system without using an adaptor — a welcome convenience considering how hard it is to find one for sale.

[NoizEnvader]

Thanks, I actually just finished reading thru those articles before you posted.

[Shining Arcanine]

I wish they'd equip the Scorpios with 16MB caches like they're equipping the new Raptors (which aren't released yet) and Caviars with

We're talking about a laptop drive here. I'd settle for a SATA edition so I could get rid of this adapter and IDE cable.

All the more reason to make them more like their desktop counterparts. With modern processes, newer 16MB caches should have less die area than older 8MB caches. Other manufacturers have equiped their hard drives with 16MB caches, and Western Digital practically invented the concept of leap frogging the industry cache wise. I do not see why they refuse to equip the Scorpio with a 16MB cache.

[mathias]

The issue isn't just how much SRAM or DRAM they have to produce. Some other stuff in the hard drive needs to be redesigned to change the cache size. Or so I hear. Seems to make sense though, otherwise, for a long time now, we would have had not just 2 and 8 meg drives but also premium 32 or 64 meg cache versions, or even higher.

BTW, I also wish that western digital would make their desktop and laptop drives more alike, except by making their desktop drives the quietest 3.5's.

[Shining Arcanine]

Yeah but assuming that they are currently using a 130nm process (which I doubt), they could use a 90nm or 65nm process to shrink the die size of a 16MB chip to that of an 8MB chip on the current process. I think the problem is either that they are too lazy to increase the size of their laptop drives' cache or that they do not care enough to increase the size of their laptop drives' cache. I know that I would gladly pay extra for a laptop hard drive with a large amount of cache (I would like to see a 128MB premium edition).

As for their desktop drives, they have been gradually improving their acoustical characteristics, and after a certain point it is really splitting hairs unless the company they buy their platters from (they sold their platter development division to a company they do business with a few years back to focus on making hard drives; why they do not consider making platters and making hard drives the same thing I will never know) comes up with a revolutionary new breakthrough that dramatically reduces the roughness of their platters' surfaces.