WD Scorpio ML80 WD1600BEVS

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Western Digital was not in a hurry to launch the third generation of its Scorpio hard drives for notebooks. This company let the other manufacturers be the first to master 160 GB and PMR. Having waited a little and borrowed the streamlined PMR technology, WD launched Scorpio ML80 with the top SATA model WD1600BEVS a tad later than its competitors. But in return, the company managed to raise transfer rates of its 2.5" 160 GB models to new heights - 50 Mbytes/s, as well as to improve average seek time compared to old Scorpio ML60. Ported to the new micro controller, firmware algorithms optimized back in ML40 and ML60 put the lid on. As a result, the top WD1600BEVS model demonstrates excellent performance in many personal applications as well as in more serious server loads. Steady NCQ effect usually helps ML80 in both cases.

So everything would have been great, and these drives would have got the Original Design award but for some negative moments: the new model was painfully slow in some tests, being outperformed even by its predecessor Scorpio ML60 WD1200BEVS. Theoretically, this problem can be fixed by rewriting caching algorithms for small blocks. But what can be done about the increased power consumption of the ML80? Especially considering the progress of competing models in this field. However, despite all its drawbacks, the new WD product is very interesting and competitive. Let's hope that the company will fix them in future products in this series (if it decides they are important ).