When it comes to your notebook computer everything is a compromise. The performance of everything from the CPU inside to the hard drives and video cards are a compromise of performance for battery life and vice versa. The trick is to get a good balance of performance while still getting good battery life.

Western Digital announced today that its line of Scorpio Black 2.5-inch SATA notebook HDDs are now available. This line of drives gives high performance with a 7200 RPM rotational speed, but adds some technology to help reduce the battery power needed and increase the runtime of the notebook.

The drives all use the SATA 3 GB/s interface and a 16MB cache. Other features of the line include IntelliSeek that calculates the ideal seek speed to lower power use and help increase battery life. A SecurePark feature parks the heads off the disk platters for increased durability and a Free-fall sensor can park the head off the disk platters in 200ms when a fall is detected. The drives are available in up to 320GB capacities with pricing of up to $250.