Need a high capacity hard drive? Well, lucky you, Western Digital has shipped its first 1TB notebook drive thin enough to fit most portable notebooks. The upgraded Scorpio Blue measures 9.5mm tall and is thin enough that a MacBook Pro or most other thinner notebooks can take it with ease.

They achieved the slimness through fitting 500GB per platter and cutting out the third platter. You can buy the drive for $139 at resellers. We aren’t sure when it will come from PC builders.

Western Digital has introduced the My Book Studio Edition II. This dual-drive storage system features a huge storage capacity of 6 terabytes (TB) and has been designed for those of us who use our computers to create, store, edit and archive large HD video and photo files. You have plenty of room here.

It has 4 high-speed interfaces (FireWire 800/400, eSATA, USB 2.0) and uses Western Digital’s GreenPower Technology to consume less power, which is good for the environment. Other features include automatic and continuous backup software, an easy to open enclosure that allows users to service the drives easily, an external capacity gauge so you know how much space is left and a 5 year limited warranty.

We can never have enough storage options these days and this latest is from Western Digital, who has announced a new storage capacity for its Scorpio Black hard drive line, by launching this 750GB model.

This 2.5-inch hard drive features an SATA 3.0 Gbps interface, 16MB of buffer and works at 7200 RPM. If you like how this one is spinning, the 750GB Scorpio Black is priced at just $149. That’s a pretty decent price.

We can never have enough storage, so it’s good that Seagate and Western Digital will soon be releasing their 3TB internal hard drives. There hasn’t been an official announcement yet, but pictures of the drives have surfaced of the Seagate Barracuda XT and Western Digital Caviar Green.

The Seagate drive will feature a 7,200RPM speed, along with a 64MB memory buffer, a 6Gbps SATA interface and an access time of 8.5ms. The WD drive will spin at a slower 5,400RPM and offer a 3Gbps SATA interface, a similar 64MB of buffer and an access time of 8.9ms.

Western Digital has introduced the My Passport Essential portable hard drive, My Passport Essential SE portable hard drive and My Book Essential external hard drive. These storage devices come in variety of storage capacities and deliver superfast USB 3.0 connectivity.

The My Passport Essential is the smallest with a 500GB storage capacity, while the My Passport Essential SE is available in 750GB and 1TB sizes. The My Book Essential ranges from 1TB up to 3TB. The My Passport Essential portable is $99.99, the My Passport Essential SE drives range from $129.99 to $169.99, and the My Book Essential drives are from $129.99 to $249.99.

Western Digital has unveiled a new product that hits two digital media birds with one stone. The device is called the WD Elements Play, can store lots of media, and lets you view that media on your TV.

The device is a smallish square box measuring 1.6″ H x 8.9″ L x 5.9″ W. Inside the black box hides a HDD of 1TB or 2TB capacity allowing for the storage of lots of digital files and video in various formats.

Western Digital’s 500GB My Passport Essential will now come in limited edition designs thanks to students at California State University, Long Beach’s Industrial Design program. The drives will come in Boom Box, Black Hole, Cityscape, Fuchsia Leaf and Wave decorative patterns.

Obviously these are targeted at students who want some extra style. The new drives are compatible with Windows and feature WD SmartWare software that offers a visual method for performing backups of your data via a single-screen view of the contents. There’s also user-selected password protection combined with 256-bit hardware-based encryption.

Western Digital has some good news regarding its WD TV line. You’ll get the usual names like Pandora, Live365, and YouTube, but now the WD TV Live Plus HD is also shipping with Netflix. And we all love Netflix.

You’ll be able to browse titles, manage your Instant Queue, and stream your favorite TV episodes on your HDTV. Of course you can also access your legally purchased digital media using the USB connection or Windows 7 “Play To” functionality. You can buy it now for $150. Beats streaming with your Wii right?

Speed. You can never get enough. Whether you are on the road or just surfing the internet, you need more speed. Western Digital’s VelociRaptor hard drive will deliver. WD has just unveiled its VelociRaptor hard drives in 450GB and 600GB capacities for Macs and PCs.

Previously it was 300GB. The drive runs at 10,000RPM via a SATA 6Gb/s connection. Sadly we don’t yet have any pricing info, but we can safely assume that the extra speed and capacity will cost you.

Western Digital shipped the industry’s first 2.5-inch 1TB hard drive last summer, but sadly it couldn’t be used as a drop-in solution for upgrading your laptop drive. This is because it relies on a 12.5mm height form factor, while the majority of laptops only support 9.5mm height drives.

Well, now they’ve outed the 750GB Scorpio Blue, a 2.5-inch drive that uses the standard height form factor. The unit includes Advanced Format and WhisperDrive for just $149.

If you’ve been wondering when we might see 3TB drives arriving, the answer is soon. At least according to Dr Geoff Barrall, founder and CEO of Drobo. He says that Drobos will be offering a 3TB drive by April 2010. Drobo uses Western Digital drives, so there’s a good chance that it could mean that Western Digital will be outing some 3TB drives of their own very soon.

Currently Western Digital offers a 2TB Caviar Black 3.5-inch SATA drive. A 3TB, 4-platter drive would need 750GB per platter – a 50 per cent increase over what the Caviar Black has.

External storage solutions have lots of uses in today’s home. With the huge amounts of digital content the average consumer uses today, we need a place to back that data up. Western Digital has announced a new My Book Studio external hard drive that has an e-label display built-in.

The cool part about the display is that it can show the volume label and how much space is left on the drive even when the drive is not plugged in. The device is designed for Mac users and has FireWire 800 interface and 256-bit hardware encryption.

It took them awhile, but drive makers are finally getting hip to the fact that we would like to see how much disk space is left without having to plug it in. About time. Western Digital’s My Book Elite and My Book Studio drives now feature labels on the outside displaying that always-on info.

That means even when it isn’t plugged in, you’ll get a 12 character label, and a second line that displays how much space is left on the disc. In both gigabytes and a graph no less. Simple solution huh? The USB 2TB My Book Elite is $280, and the 2TB My Book Studio with FireWire 800 and USB connectivity is $300.

In storage news WD has updated several of its external HDD storage devices for the media lover in you. The new My Book Essential comes in 1TB for $149, 2TB for $229.99 and 500GB capacities for $99.99. The My Book for Mac is available with 1TB for $149.99.

While the My Passport Essential comes in capacities of 500GB for $139 or 320GB for $99.99. My Passport for Mac is available in 500GB for $149.99 and 320GB for $119.99.

Western Digital has scaled things down with their latest TV Mini. It’s a mini version of their earlier media sharing device. The first thing this set-top box does is get rid of HDMI output to cut down on the size to just 3.6″ square and 0.8″ deep.

It’s capable of 1080i video playback and has RealVideo format support alongside MPEG-1/2/4, VOB and XviD formats. As far as connectivity, you get component output for HDTV, RCA and optical audio out for digital sound. It can be tucked away just about anywhere.