Items tagged with Western Digital
Today, WD announced that it is halting the production of hard drives in its facilities close to Bangkok, Thailand due to severe flooding. Although the company's employees are safe and the facilities are operational, the flooding has created problems with the region's infrastructure including transportation and utilities. WD says it is currently working with its suppliers to maximize throughput and availability of parts, but it's too early to say how much of an impact this will have on the production of hard drives. WD Reports Impact on HDD Production Due to Severe Flooding in Thailand IRVINE, Calif., Oct. 12, 2011 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Western Digital Corp. (NYSE: WDC) today announced that...
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Roku, Popcorn Hour, Amazon -- who in the world do you choose these days? Streaming options are boundless, it seems, and Western Digital is dead-set on continuing to be a player in the industry. The company's new WD TV media player family is this week expanding by one, with the introduction of the WD TV Live streaming media player. It's a Wi-Fi enabled device that's the first in the category of offer Spotify music integration. There is, of course, still access to Netflix, Hulu Plus and Blockbuster, and this guy has both Ethernet and 802.11n Wi-Fi, while supporting 1080p video output. In addition to premium Internet content, WD TV Live allows users to enjoy personal media such as photos, video...
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Another new day, another new storage option to stuff those seemingly unending files onto. This one's coming to us by way of Western Digital, with the company's latest being the My Passport Studio and My Passport for Mac portable hard drives. The new generation of drives are specifically tailored to work with Apple's Mac / Time Machine functions, and naturally they boast "Apple-inspired" designs. The My Passport Studio touts an all-metal design and offers up to 1TB of capacity, while the My Passport Studio provides multiple connectivity options with two FireWire 800 ports and a USB 2.0 interface. My Passport Studio also features encryption and password protection software, and an all-new design...
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"The cloud." There's probably no buzzword getting more play in 2011 than that, and for good reason: files are gradually moving to non-localized places, and so long as data caps stay at bay and Internet connections continue to expand into more homes, we're all for it. And so is Western Digital. The storage outfit has just revealed The Personal Cloud, as they're calling it, with their WD 2go and WD 2go Pro mobile apps for the My Book Live personal cloud storage solution. My Book Live drive connects to the home network creating shared storage that users can access within and outside the home. Secure remote access to the My Book Live is available on any computer through www.WD2go.com, while the WD...
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If you're currently in the market for a large capacity hard drive, you've come to the right place. Today we take a look at four of the latest 3TB drives to hit the market, from Hitachi, Seagate, and Western Digital. Although each HDD offers the same amount of storage, there are some distinct differences between them. Read on to find out what separates these products from one another, and then you can examine the performance numbers we recorded from each drive after running them through our benchmark gauntlet... 3TB Hard Drive Round-up: Hitachi, Seagate, Western Digital Western Digital AV-GP, Caviar Green, Hitachi Deskstar, and Seagate Barracuda XT...
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When we reviewed our first 3TB hard drive almost a year ago, the market wasn't quite ready for the huge storage capacity being made available. Fully compatible motherboards featuring the unified extensible firmware interface (UEFI) were still months away, and having to use a separate host bus adapter (HBA) card was inconvenient and added extra cost. But a year brings a lot of changes to the technology landscape. UEFI-equipped boards are prevalent, starting with P67 based products and spreading to the latest Intel Z68 chipset as well. Many of AMD's 990FX motherboards also sport UEFI. If you're building a new system any time soon, we've got good news for you. Chances are your mainboard will...
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Multiple manufacturers in the IT industry have been keeping a wary eye on China's decision to cut back on rare earth exports and the impact it may have on component prices. An article from DigiTimes suggests consumers will see that decision hit the hard drive industry this year, with HDD prices trending upwards an estimated 5-10 percent depending on capacity. Although rare earth magnets are only a small part of a hard drive's total cost, China cut exports last year by 40 percent, which drove pricing for these particular components up an estimated 20-30x. At that point, a rare earth component that originally cost 25 cents is suddenly $5—and given how cheap hard drives have become, that translates...
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Western Digital isn't laying down and letting Roku and Apple TV run the in-home entertainment show. The company's been continually bolstering services to their WD TV Live hub for some time now, and this may be one of the most significant updates yet. This week, the company announced that Hulu Plus is available to WD TV Live Plus and WD TV Live Hub media players, enabling customers to watch hit TV shows, movies and catch up on previous seasons of their favorite shows. That's in addition to Blockbuster, Netflix, Cinema Now, Pandora, YouTube and Facebook, amongst others. If that's not enough, WD TV Live Hub users will now also be able to listen to thousands of radio stations via SHOUTcast. The Hulu...
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It seems like we never have enough space. Sure, a 1TB notebook drive might be more targeted to the mobile workstation market but we're willing to bet there are more than a few pack rats in the mainstream as well. Recently, Western Digital stepped out and announced their new 1TB 9.5mm Scorpio Blue 2.5-inch notebook drive. The announcement was significant in that it's the first drive of this capacity to squeeze that many bits into an industry standard 9.5mm, 2.5" SATA form-factor. To do this, WD drove areal density per platter in their 2.5" platform to 500GB. Here's a look at the new Scorpio Blue 1TB 2.5-inch SATA hard drive and its specifications. Next we'll...
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Notebook hard drives have generally followed a similar track as other mobile components, in that they're much smaller, lighter and consume less power, but also offer lower performance, features and capacity versus their desktop counterparts. And though technology continues to evolve in notebook architectures, similarly, some may argue that evolution doesn't happen at the sometimes blinding pace that we see on the desktop. Regardless, we're sure you can remember a day when terabyte-sized desktop hard drives were ground breaking. Fittingly, notebook hard drive capacities reaching a full terabyte are what we'd consider bleeding-edge currently. Of course, a consumer's insatiable...
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Western Digital announced today that the company's new WD Scorpio Blue 1TB Mobile Hard Drive is now shipping. The 9.5 mm, 2.5-inch hard drive comes packed with a 1TB capacity squeezed into a tiny package to fit most mainstream notebook computers. The drive utilizes a 500GB-per-platter areal density and can claim the crown as the highest capacity 2.5-inch drive in the industry-standard 9.5 mm, two-platter (2-disk) form factor. The Scorpio Blue is designed for ruggedness and reliability with data-protection features to keep your valuable data safe. The drive also achieves excellent power and performance, which makes it the perfect solution for users looking to squeeze 1TB of data into...
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Western Digital's about to get bizzy. Silly pun and all, the real deal is that WD is about to enter the small business market in a big way, with small office storage servers leading the way. They'll be teaming with Microsoft in order to "simplify workgroup sharing and data protection," and of course, Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials will be the OS onboard. According to WD, the fruit of the partnership will be a product that simplifies connection, protection and collaboration online for small businesses and the information technology services organizations that support them. What's interesting is that there doesn't seem to actually be any indication of what's on deck for these two. The...
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Western Digital's newest generation of the My Book Studio external hard drive is now available with 3TB of storage. This line of drives is designed for use with Mac computers and Apple Time Machine. To compliment the design of a Mac computer, the drive features a brushed aluminum casing. This aluminum exterior also keeps the drive cool while in use. Although the drive is formatted for use with a Mac computer, it can be reformatted and used with a PC as well. The My Book Studio external hard drive offers FireWire 800/400 and USB 2.0 interfaces, user-controlled automatic backup software and drive management, password protection and hardware encryption. Other capacity options include 1 TB and 2...
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Rugged is the name of the game these days, particularly when it comes to portable hard drives. It seems as if every major company is now looking to put out a rugged drive, with their stamp of approval to boot. Western Digital is no different, and this week they're introducing the WD Nomad. It's actually a rugged case, which protects the company's popular My Passport line of devices. It's angled at photographers and outdoorsy folk who tend to drop and dent their equipment more often than not, and providing a case (as opposed to a fully encapsulated HDD) is certainly a new and appreciated twist. The WD Nomad rugged case features a polycarbonate exterior and shock-absorbing elastomer cushion inside....
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Convergence is the word, and it's happening more and more each day. Western Digital has just launched their Photo View App, which pushes HD videos from iOS and Android devices wirelessly to the company's WD TV Live Hub for playback on one's HDTV. It's a new smartphone-to-HDTV video sharing feature, and so long as you have your phone around in your living room, you can get content onto your television. Pretty slick! It's an updated version of the app, and it makes the WD TV Live Hub even more attractive. If you own both a Hub and an iOS/Android device, there's no reason to skip the update. Consumers can create content with their iOS or Android device and send it directly to anyone with a WD TV...
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Western Digital added 2.5 TB and 3 TB versions to its family of WD AV-GP SATA hard drives for the audio-video (AV) market. These 3.5-inch hard drives offer 24x7 reliability as well as low power consumption for storage-intensive AV applications such as digital video recorders, video surveillance, single-drive media servers and external multimedia storage. The drives feature WD GreenPower Technology and are field tested to have a 1.0 million hour MTBF rating. The new drives are currently available. WD® Launches Industry's Largest Capacity 3 TB SATA Hard Drives for AV Platforms New WD AV-GP 2.5 TB, 3 TB Hard Drives Offer Cool-Running, Unrivalled Storage Capacity for Reliable 24/7 Video Streaming...
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Western Digital announced the new My Book Studio Edition II. This dual-drive storage system features 6TB of storage yet still maintains the same footprint as previous editions. The My Book Studio Edition II drive supports eSATA, FireWire 800, FireWire 400, and USB 2.0 connectivity. The drive comes with backup software and features a capacity gauge so you'll know exactly how much space is available on the system. The My Book Studio Edition II drive is compatible with Apple Time Machine. The 6TB version of the My Book Studio Edition II dual-drive storage system is available now for $549.99. WD INTRODUCES 6 TB EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE TO SUPPORT INCREASED HD CONTENT CREATION BY CREATIVE PROS AND MAC...
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In the chase for first place among hard drive makers, Western Digital's acquisition of Hitachi should pay off handsomely. Market research firm iSuppli reckons the purchase will net WDC a commanding 49.6 percent share of global HDD shipments, increasing its lead over Seagate (29.4 percent) from just 2 percentage points to 20.2 percentage points. Equally important, the purchase opens the door for WDC into the enterprise HDD segment, iSuppli says. "The enterprise HDD market garners significantly higher margins than the consumer segment, which makes the enterprise a fast-growing market for HDD revenue," said Zhang. "To date, WDC has largely been absent from the enterprise segment. However, Hitachi...
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Western Digital plans to acquire Hitachi Global Storage Technologies in a cash and stock transaction valued at approximately $4.3 billion. The resulting company will retain the Western Digital name. By combining these companies, WD says the end result will be a “customer-focused storage company” that will offer the industry’s broadest product lineup. Some of the benefits WD expects to gain from the acquisition include enhanced R&D capabilities, comprehensive market coverage, and scale that will further enhance the cost structure. Western Digital to Acquire Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Combination of Hard Drive Companies Will Create Industry's Broadest Product Portfolio...
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When the going gets tough, the tough start innovating. That's not exactly how the saying goes, but it definitely applies. Western Digital is seeing loads of increased competition in the storage space, and they're looking to stay one step ahead of those rivals by investing in research. R&D can go a long way to getting a product to market first, and of course, being first to market is essential in a sector like this. The company has just announced a new hard drive R&D Center in Singapore, partnering with A*STAR Data Storage Institute and universities in the development of advanced hard drive technologies. The facility is located in Singapore Science Park, near WD's newly acquired...
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Seagate issued a general announcement yesterday in an apparent attempt to clarify its SSD plans going forward. Of all the various hard drive vendors, Seagate has been by far the most acrimonious towards SSD development; former CEO Bill Watkins' plans for dealing with the introduction of SSDs was to threaten to sue the companies out of existence. Watkins is gone, but Seagate has barely dipped a toe into the SSD market. Seagate's latest official press release statement attempts to justify the company's decision to mostly ignore SSDs in favor of conventional hard drives or hybrid drives. ...the yawning gulf between NAND flash memory production capacity for solid state drives and demand for laptop...
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Solid state drives have been making waves in the storage industry since they first entered the consumer market about four years ago, but Western Digital is still dubious about the value of both SSD's and hybrid drives. In a recent company call with investors, Western Digital's CEO, John Coyne, remarked: ""We have taken a look at and in fact shipped product into the SSD, in the client environment, and we do not find a compelling value proposition there either for manufacturer or for customer because the economics do not work. The cost of the storage/performance is too high." Asked what the company's position is regarding hybrid drives, Coyne responded: "We also continue to evaluate the opportunity...
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