Western Digital announced it is now shipping its new WD Scorpio 320 GB 2.5-inch SATA (Serial ATA) hard drives for notebook computers and portable storage devices.

WD's 2.5-inch hard drive includes proprietary features that make the drive quiet while running at cool operating temperatures. The WD Scorpio 320 GB hard drives deliver a 3 Gb/s transfer rate and are destined for use in OEM notebook platformst.

The new WD Scorpio drive features 5400 RPM, an 8MB cache and a 12 msec access time.

ShockGuard technology combines firmware and hardware advancements to protect the drive mechanics and platter surface from vibrations, while the IntelliSeek technology calculates optimum seek speeds to lower power consumption.

WD Scorpio 320 GB drives (model WD3200BEVS) are available on the company's online store (www.shopwd.com) at a price of $200.