Items tagged with (NASDAQ: WDC)
Western Digital recently launched a new family of NVMe-based solid state drives targeting gamers and enthusiasts. The simply-branded WD Black NVMe SSD family has a similar naming convention to some previous-generation solid state drives built by the company, but these latest offerings are packing some new technology and offer performance much higher than any of the earlier WD-made storage product offerings that came before it. The WD Black NVMe SSD family features a new controller, 64-layer BiCS3 3D TLC NAND flash memory, an intelligently laid-out PCB that optimizes thermal characteristics, and firmware tuned for enthusiast desktop applications. The drive’s main features and specifications...
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Western Digital today announced that it has successfully developed four bit-per-cell (also known as X4) 3D NAND built using 64-layer, BiCS3 technology. The company says that these chips can store 768 gigabits on a single chip (equivalent to 96GB), which is a 50% increase from 512 gigabit three bit-per-cell NAND (as basic math verifies). WD's X4 3D NAND was designed with the help of the company's work with X4 2D NAND, and one thing in particular the company is really proud of is the fact that its QLC flash delivers performance similar to that of X3 three bit-per-cell NAND. What that means is that consumers shouldn't fret too much over performance, but instead focus on the extra storage they're...
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At this point, it's hard to tell what the top limit for densities will be with current mechanical hard drive technologies, but HGST proves that it's not 12TB. With the company's brand-new Ultrastar He12, enterprise users can take advantage of a staggering 12,000GB capacity in a single hard disk drive, and relish in the fact that it's backed by a 5-year warranty. One of the standout features of the He12 is one that's not easy to see just by looking at it. Under the hood is are an industry-leading eight platters, with simple math telling us that each one is 1.5TB in size. The areal density on these disk is massive, and could mean that this could become one of the fastest 7,200 RPM drives ever produced....
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Considering the fact that Western Digital just made a mammoth acquisition, I'm sure it would have preferred that bad news surrounding some of its products could have come out at any other time. Nonetheless, anyone that purchased a My Passport external hard drive between 2007 and 2013 and has been taking advantage of its built-in security features will want to take note. According to research conducted by Gunnar Alendal, Christian Kison, and modg, we've learned that all My Passport drives manufactured between those years have a gaping flaw that renders their built-in encryption pretty much useless. It doesn't matter if the drive channels data through USB 2.0, USB 3.0, FireWire or Thunderbolt -...
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Western Digital's participation in the SSD market has been spotty at best. Nearly five-years-ago, the company produced a line of desktop SSDs - like so many other I/O vendors - but today, you'll only find a small hint of flash in a WD drive if you look to the hybrid Black2. WD has instead used its subsidiary HGST to handle everything SSD, but with its major enterprise focus, no one would fault you if you were unaware that WD even dealt with SSDs at all. Well, the enterprise is one area WD seems pretty content to stay in, and expand. Today, the company announced its acquisition of Skyera, a well-known player in the enterprise SSD game with its collection...
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I've been a fan of WD's My Passport series of external hard drives for some time, but with some wireless drives having come and gone over the past couple of years, I could never help but wonder where on earth the WD option was. Well, that question has now been answered, with the just-announced and appropriately-named WD My Passport Wireless. WD's tagline for the Wireless is "Every device. One drive. No wires.", which does a great job of explaining what the drive is all about. Under the hood is a 500GB, 1TB, or 2TB hard drive, along with an 802.11n 2x2 Wi-Fi adapter. As with most wireless storage, you'll be connecting to this My Passport through Wi-Fi, as if it were a hotspot. Then through WD's...
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Back in December, online backup provider Backblaze presented a simple question: "Enterprise Drives: Fact or Fiction?" The answer, at least based-upon the company's small sampling of drives (over 10,000 "drive hours" were tested), it was discovered that enterprise drives don't necessarily live longer. In fact, in Backblaze's particular case, they lived shorter lives. Of course, "enterprise" drives are designed for more than just longer life, but this kind of test proves that those who might opt for so-called enterprise / RAID drives might be overspending for features they don't need, with the false assurance of buying drives that will live longer. This discovery struck home with me, because I...
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Do you associate with nerds, and more importantly, are you secure in your ability to convey the true meaning of the word? We ask only because you should certainly get prepared -- it's tough to talk about heat assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) technology without feeling a little nerdy. That said, the tech is pretty sophisticated under the hood, and could have very positive impacts for laypeople who simply want their devices and computers to work more quickly and efficiently. Western Digital has demonstrated its take on HAMR at the 2013 China International Forum on Advanced Materials and Commercialization. WD’s vice president of technology, Dr. William Cain, had this to say: "Analysts predict...
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As laptops and ultrabooks get thinner, even 9.5mm-thick mobile hard drives are starting to look bulky. Western Digital is stepping up with a new 1TB WD Blue hard drive, which comes in at a mere 7mm thick. The 2.5-inch drive supports standard 9.5mm drive bays in today’s laptops, but it’s also thin enough to accommodate future, compact notebooks. WD's Blue line has even thinner drives, albeit at lower capacities. “Users with large portfolios of content no longer need to sacrifice capacity when buying an Ultrabook or upgrading to a thin and light notebook,” said Matt Rutledge, Vice President and General Manager for client storage products at Western Digital. The 1TB WD Blue...
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We all know that solid state storage is the sexy option these days, but a lower cost per gigabyte and higher overall capacities have kept mechanical hard disk drives (HDDs) from becoming irrelevant or otherwise obsolete, especially in datacenter environments. It's no surprise, then, that Western Digital continues to devote time and resources into HDDs. The company's newest product is its WD Se family, a line of enterprise-class HDDs that are best suited for bulk cloud storage, small-to-medium business (SMB) environments, high-end NAS applications, replicated environments, archiving, and other backup-heavy scenarios. These 3.5-inch drives ship in 2TB, 3TB, and 4TB capacities, each one with a 7,200...
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HGST (formerly Hitachi Global Storage Technologies and now a wholly owned subsidiary of Western Digital) claims that its latest mobile hard drive, the Travelstar 5K1500, offers the--and we quote--“highest storage density of any hard disk drive today”. Those are strong words, but HGST may have something there. They crammed 1.5TB into a 2.5-inch, 9.5mm chassis that houses three platters. The drives also feature 32MB cache and a 6Gbps SATA interface with 5400 RPM speed. At idle, the Travelstar 5K1500 consumes just 0.5W of power and emits 2.5 bels, making it both power efficient and very quiet--both of which are features that mobile system makers cherish. Further, to protect against the...
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