Western Digital (WD) and Fujitsu will likely have 1TB 2.5-inch disk drives available by early 2010 according to industry sources.

WD has just announced that it has started volume shipping its 500GB 2.5-inch Scorpio Blue drive, a notebook drive with 250GB per platter and a 5,400rpm spin speed. Seagate expects to ship its half terabyte 2.5-incher before the end of the year.

Our sources say WD and Fujitsu will have 750GB 2.5-inch drives by mid-2009 and 1 terabyte units by early 2010, if not the end of 2009. WD is building quite a track record of pipping Seagate by introducing notebook drives at progressively higher capacity points first, doing this with 250GB, 320GB and now 500GB models. This may not continue as Seagate has been catching up and will strive to match and exceed WD.

Seagate may well have its 750GB and 1TB notebook drives available before WD. ®