WD, a Western Digital company, announced that it has founded the Storage Products Association (SPA) with other hard drive companies to promote the merits and value of rotating magnetic storage technologies, as well as to make consumers and professionals aware of how critical hard disk drives (HDDs) and solid-state hybrid drives (SSHDs) are to their digital lives.

SPA members include HGST, Seagate, Toshiba and WD. The organization helps storage manufacturers and users understand and support current and future storage needs, including the key role of hard disk drives (HDDs) and solid state hybrid drives, in an effective storage mix for all consumer and business environments. SPA will provide education to its customers, partners, members and users of HDDs and SSHDs. SPA will also participate in industry and user events, and will publish materials about end users' storage needs and effective usage of a mix of storage technologies.

WD, a Western Digital company, today announced COMPUTEX TAIPEI 2013 (booth L0810) it is shipping the world's thinnest 1 TB hard drive with its new 2.5-inch WD Blue 7 mm hard drive. Offering OEMs, channel integrators and consumers a unique storage solution for thin and light systems, slimmer notebooks, as well as compatibility with the industry-standard 9.5 mm drive slots of mainstream notebooks, the WD Blue hard drive family, in capacities from 320 GB to 1 TB in the 7 mm height, now provides a singular option of thin design and high capacity storage.

"Users with large portfolios of content no longer need an Ultrabook or upgrading to a thin and light notebook," said Matt Rutledge , Vice President and General Manager for client storage products at WD. "This most compact 1TB hard drive to-date offers manufacturers of systems an upsell path for their customers who will now be able to choose systems offering both sleek design and high capacity.

WD, a Western Digital company and world leader for storage deployed in datacenters, today announced availability of its innovative WD Se line of hard drives, the first designed for scale-out datacenter deployments. Built on an enterprise-grade platform for reliable 24x7x365 datacenter operation, WD Se is tailored to deliver the right combination of performance, reliability and robustness for large-scale replicated environments, mid-sized network attached storage (NAS) deployment, and backup/archiving applications.

WD Se is a true enterprise-class drive with the right blend of affordability and capabilities to address the massive growth of semi-structured data, which is accelerating the scale-out of datacenters of all sizes. Now shipping in capacities up to 4 TB, the new WD Se hard drives enables customers to balance their data growth challenges in multi-drive enclosures without compromising enterprise-class features.

WD, a Western Digital company, today announced the availability of the My Passport Ultra line of portable hard drives, which combine additional layers of data protection with super-fast USB 3.0 connectivity, a slim, compact design and four color choices to offer mobile consumers the safest and easiest way to protect their digital content while traveling. Available in 500 GB, 1 TB and new 2 TB capacities, My Passport Ultra portable hard drives have built-in WD SmartWare Pro backup software with Dropbox integration, hardware encryption and password protection to safeguard against unauthorized drive access. A protective pouch is included with the My Passport Ultra to help shield it from the daily knocks encountered by today's mobile consumer.

DGM (aka Digimate) rolled out a trio of IPS LED PC monitors covering the 24-inch, 27-inch, and 30-inch categories. The best part? These aren't the usual 1080p tripe. The 24-inch IPS-2402WDH features a scrollwheel-pleasing 1920 x 1200-pixel resolution, 178°/178° viewing angles, 350 cd/m² brightness, 1000:1 static contrast ratio with dynamic mega-contrast, and 5 ms response time. It features in-built stereo speakers, display inputs include DVI, HDMI, and D-Sub.

Moving on, the 27-inch IPS-2703WPH features a reinforced glass surface (we're guessing some Corning Gorilla magic at play here), 2560 x 1440-pixel resolution, 6 ms response time, and other vital-stats identical to its little sibling. Display inputs include dual-link DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort, and D-Sub. Lastly there's the pack-leading IPS-3004WPH. This 30-incher features 2560 x 1600-pixel resolution, 6 ms response time, 370 cd/m² maximum brightness, and the same connectivity as its 27-inch sibling. Internally, it features the same IPS panel used in Dell U3014, which features GB-LED backlighting. DGM didn't finalize pricing.

WD, a Western Digital company and a world leader in storage, today announced a new 3.5-inch SAS hard drive solution for legacy datacenter storage systems with the release of the WD XE, 2.5-inch, 10,000 RPM SAS hard drive, now available mounted in a 3.5-inch WD performance adapter. Shipping immediately, the WD XE hard drives provide best-in-class performance, low power consumption, and an easier upgrade path for existing 3.5-inch storage systems.

While demand for 3.5-inch, high-performance enterprise-class hard drives slows, a need remains for an alternate high-performance storage device as a transitional solution for legacy systems. WD XE hard drives offer best-in-class sequential performance and provide a compelling upgrade for datacenters migrating away from legacy drives nearing end-of-life.

WD, a Western Digital company, and a world leader in storage solutions for the connected life, today unveiled WD SmartWare Pro, an easy-to-use software tool that gives customers the power to back up their files to any USB external hard drive or the cloud using their personal Dropbox. Additionally, in the event that a file is deleted, lost, or a previous version of a file is needed, WD SmartWare Pro makes it easy to quickly restore and retrieve backed-up data.

WD SmartWare Pro is simple to set up with an intuitive installation interface that lets customers get up and running in just a few simple clicks. Once the software is setup and the drives are connected, WD SmartWare Pro visually presents customers' files and folders in a control center where they can manage multiple external hard drives and their Dropbox account. WD SmartWare Pro is compatible with WD products such as My Passport and WD Elements portable hard drives, as well as external USB drives from other manufacturers. Additionally, WD SmartWare Pro works seamlessly with WD network attached storage drives such as My Book Live.

Skyera Inc. and Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ: WDC) today announced that Skyera has received strategic funding from Western Digital Capital as part of its recently announced Series B round of financing. Western Digital Capital co-invested in the $51 million round as an extension of the strategic relationship between the two companies that also includes joint technology development. Western Digital had previously funded Skyera as its initial outside investor.

"The backing of Western Digital has enabled us to ramp our business across marketing, sales and engineering which has been instrumental in creating the industry's most innovative solid-state solution," said Radoslav Danilak , chief executive officer of Skyera. "With our skyHawk family of enterprise solid-state storage systems we are witnessing the next era of solid-state storage and I strongly believe that having a close working relationship with Western Digital, the world's top disk drive vendor, is invaluable as we set out to reshape the storage landscape."

HGST (formerly Hitachi Global Storage Technologies and now a Western Digital company, NASDAQ: WDC) is leading the disk drive industry to the forefront in nanolithography, long the exclusive purview of semiconductor manufacturers, by creating and replicating minute features that will allow the doubling of hard disk drive (HDD) density in future disk drives.

HGST Labs announced today they have combined two innovative nanotechnologies -- self-assembling molecules and nanoimprinting -- to create large areas of dense patterns of magnetic islands only 10 billionths of a meter (10 nanometers) wide. These features are only about 50 atoms wide and some 100,000 times thinner than a human hair.

Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ: WDC) today announced that Mark Long has been named executive vice president of strategy and corporate development. Long has an extensive background in corporate strategy, mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance and investment banking. He will oversee Western Digital's strategic planning and be responsible for the company's corporate development activities. Long will also lead Western Digital Capital, a strategic investment fund targeting innovative companies within the broader storage industry and related markets aligned to Western Digital's strategic plan.

"Mark is an excellent addition to the Western Digital senior leadership team," said Steve Milligan , president and chief executive officer, Western Digital. "He brings tremendous strategic and operational ability to this role, including an extensive background in mergers and acquisitions. He will focus on executing our growth strategy and capitalizing on the many opportunities present in today's dynamic storage industry."

Nowadays, new products in the SSD market have mostly been upgraded to the more efficient and high-speed SATA interface solid-state drive. However, the majority of industrial computers (IPC) are still using the PATA interface (or IDE interface), which are now facing certain problems -- malfunctioning and bad tracks are beginning to emerge in the older technology and facilities.

To solve the problem, one of the most viable upgrade options at this stage in terms of data security and cost effectiveness would be the PATA interface solid-state drive with built-in security functions. In response to customer needs, Apacer launched this value-added PATA SSDs with Data Security benefit. These products come in two specifications - 2.5-inch, 44 pin AFD 257 and 1.8-inch 40 pin AFD 187. Both models come with three built-in data security functions - Full Erase, Destroy, and Write Protect to provide advanced and upgraded data security advantages.

WD, a Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) company, and a world leader in storage solutions for the connected life, today introduced My Book AV-TV, allowing customers to instantly enable their TV recording features to store and playback hundreds of hours of entertainment by simply connecting the My Book AV-TV drive directly to a compatible TV. Additionally, customers watching live TV with the My Book AV-TV connected can press pause and rewind, or fast-forward afterward, to control and enjoy live TV at their convenience.

My Book AV-TV, available in 1 terabyte (TB) and 2 TB capacities, easily connects directly to televisions with built-in recording capability to provide plentiful storage capacity for standard or high-definition entertainment programming. Built with WD GreenPower Technology, the drive inside is engineered for the audio/video market in order to optimize the customer experience with smooth video playback of recorded content. Additionally, the WD GreenPower Technology is engineered to use less power and stay cool even in a hot entertainment center full of electronics.

Storage and application processor maker Marvell Technology has been ordered by a Federal Jury in the US state of Pennsylvania to pay a local university $1.17 billion in damages for patent-infringement. Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) developed and patented a technology that "increases the accuracy with which hard disk drive circuits read data from high-speed magnetic disks," which Marvell has been found to be infringing. Why $1.17 billion? Because these chips are an indispensable component in modern mechanical hard disk drives, made by both Seagate and WD, among others.

If and when US District Court Judge Nora Barry Fischer agrees with the Jury ruling that Marvell's infringements of CMU's patents are "willful," the fine could triple, according to K&L Gates. The jury found that Marvell sold "billions" of chips carrying the University's technology. What makes this verdict important for the PC industry is that since Marvell's HDD components are widely incorporated in HDDs across various brands, should CMU seek a sales-ban, it could potentially affect HDD production the way last year's unfortunate floods in Thailand did.

QNAP Systems, Inc. announced today a major expansion of the number of compatible peripherals available for its Turbo NAS products. The major additions include ten 3.5-inch internal SATA hard drives and a Kingston 2.5-inch internal SATA hard drive.
The newly compatible 3.5" internal SATA hard drives:

• Seagate - ST2000DM001 (2TB), ST2000NC000 (2TB), ST1000NC000 (1TB), ST3000NM0033 (Constellation ES.3) (3TB), ST2000NM0033 (Constellation ES.3) (2TB), ST1000NM0033 (Constellation ES.3) (1TB), ST500DM002 (500GB)
• Western Digital - WD4000FYYZ (4TB), WD3000FYYZ (3TB), WD2000FYYZ (2TB)
  The newly compatible 2.5" internal SATA hard drive:
• Kingston - SSDNow E100 (100GB)

With a continued focus on delivering the industry's most trusted, high-performance and reliable solutions for content creators, G-Technology today announced that its G-SPEED¹ RAID external storage solutions now come equipped with the industry's highest capacity and most reliable enterprise-class hard disk drives (HDDs), the 4TB HGST Ultrastar drives. With 7,200 RPM performance, 64MB cache, the highest 2.0 million hour mean-time-between-failure (MTBF) HDD specification, and unique enterprise-class features, the G-Technology G-SPEED family continues to deliver uncompromised performance, quality and reliability for the escalating demands of today's post-production workflows.

Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ: WDC) today announced that the Board of Directors declared a cash dividend for the quarter ending December 28, 2012, of $0.25 per share of common stock (the "cash dividend"). The cash dividend will be paid on December 26, 2012, to the company's stockholders of record as of December 14, 2012. On September 13, 2012, the company indicated that beginning in its current fiscal year 2013 it is targeting a return to shareholders of approximately 50 percent of its free cash flow through a mix of cash dividends and share repurchases.

The amount of future dividends under the company's dividend policy, and the declaration and payment thereof, will be based upon all relevant factors, including the company's financial position, results of operations, cash flows, capital requirements and restrictions under the company's existing credit agreement, and will be in compliance with applicable law. The Board retains the power to modify, suspend or cancel the company's dividend policy in any manner and at any time as it may deem necessary or appropriate in the future.

It will be towards the end of 2013, when Western Digital will have 5 terabyte (or 5000 GB) models of its NAS-optimized WD Red, and energy-efficient consumer-optimized WD Green lines of consumer hard drives. According to launch plans unearthed by Russian website AlwaysMoreDigital, the 5 TB WD Red (model: WD50ERFX) and 5 TB WD Green (WD50EZRX) will be launched in Q4 (in or after October 2013). A little earlier than that, the two lines will be updated with 4 TB variants, the WD40ERFX and WD40EZRX. All four drives feature 64 MB of cache, SATA 6 Gb/s interface, and are built in the 3.5-inch form-factor.

WD, a Western Digital company, and a world leader in external storage and solutions for today's connected life, announced today comprehensive support for new storage features in Windows 8 and an app for the new Windows user interface that makes it easy to discover, enjoy and backup digital media and files.

The WD app for Windows 8 automatically discovers digital content on connected WD direct attached storage solutions and showcases those photos, videos and music on a live tile on the Start screen. Within the app, customers can easily find and enjoy their digital content as well as share their media via email and social media sites with the Share charm. Windows 8 automatically installs the WD app for certified WD products or it can be downloaded from the Windows Store.

WD, a Western Digital company and a world leader in hard drives, today announced its highest performance, highest capacity desktop hard drive, the WD Black 4 TB, 3.5-inch, 7200 RPM drive. Shipping immediately, the fast performance and ultimate capacity of the award-winning WD Black drives make them perfect for gaming, high-performance desktop systems and workstations.

WD Black hard drives combine 7200 RPM spin speed, 64 MB cache, dual stage actuator technology, SATA 6 gigabits per second (Gb/s) interface, and an integrated dual processor to deliver ultimate performance in a maximum-capacity drive.

WD, a Western Digital company, and a world leader in external storage and solutions for today's connected life, today unveils the new My Net AC1300 HD Dual-Band Router and My Net AC Bridge as the latest additions to the acclaimed My Net family of HD dual-band routers. These products combine next-generation 802.11ac wireless technology with WD's exclusive FasTrack technology for automatically prioritizing high-bandwidth entertainment services like Netflix, YouTube, online games and Skype, to provide maximum streaming performance inside the home.

A leading product testing and analysis organization, The Tolly Group, conducted performance testing of the My Net AC1300 router and My Net Bridge amongst comparable products on the market today. Results show that the My Net AC1300 router is faster than leading competitive products averaged across ranges of 30 to 75 feet, demonstrating the strongest performance in providing stable wireless speeds over long distances, and cutting out buffering and lag times to provide a smooth HD entertainment streaming experience throughout the home.

WD, a Western Digital company, and a world leader in external storage and connected life solutions, today announced a new version of the My Book Studio external hard drive. USB 3.0 capability is now extended to this family of My Book Studio hard drives and provides data transfer speeds up to three times faster than USB 2.0. WD has also introduced the addition of a massive 4 TB capacity in a single-drive configuration making it a perfect solution for backing up large amounts of digital content. The My Book Studio drive is designed with a premium aluminum enclosure and will be available in 1 TB, 2 TB, 3 TB and 4 TB capacities.

The My Book Studio drive's features and benefits have made it a favorite among creative professionals and Mac computer enthusiasts, including working seamlessly with Apple Time Machine, for protecting and backing up their valuable professional and personal content. The My Book Studio external hard drive includes WD Security, which allows users to password protect their drive along with 256-bit hardware-based encryption for added security against unauthorized access to the drive and its contents.

WD, a subsidiary of Western Digital, and a world leader in external storage and solutions for today's connected life, today introduced My Passport Enterprise, one of the industry's first portable hard drives designed specifically for use with Microsoft Corp.'s Windows To Go, which enables corporate customers to provision a fully featured Windows 8 workspace on a bootable USB drive.

My Passport Enterprise includes 500 GB of storage space, while still maintaining a sleek and compact design for maximum portability. The capacity and portability allows users to easily carry all their data and settings so they can quickly boot and run their personalized Windows 8 system on any compatible PC in the office, at home or on the go. Additionally, setup is fast and easy with the WD Compass utility included with My Passport Enterprise.

WD, a subsidiary of Western Digital, and a world leader in external storage and solutions for today's connected life, today unveils its My Net Wi-Fi Range Extender to expand wireless home networks into out-of-reach areas of the home.

Following the introduction of its first line of wireless home networking products, the acclaimed My Net family of HD dual-band routers, the selectable dual-band My Net Wi-Fi Range Extender provides faster, stronger and more reliable wireless network coverage to computers, smartphones, tablets, gaming consoles, media players, smart TVs and other Wi-Fi connected devices that suffer from a weak Wi-Fi signal within the home.

WD, a Western Digital company, and a leader in the mobile, desktop, high-capacity enterprise and consumer markets for hard drives today announced it is further expanding its enterprise-class storage offerings with the release of new WD RE SAS and WD RE SATA hard drives in capacities up to 4 TB, the largest on the market today.

Available immediately in 1 TB, 2 TB, 3 TB and 4 TB capacities for nearline SAS and 2 TB, 3 TB and 4 TB for SATA, the 3.5-inch WD RE SAS and WD RE SATA hard drives offer the powerful combination of enterprise-class features and superior capacity to meet the growing demands of conventional business-critical environments as well as the high-capacity and performance requirements of cloud and scale-out computing.

QNAP Systems, Inc. is extending the number of compatible peripherals for its Turbo NAS products, the additions including one Western Digital 3.5-inch 1TB internal SATA hard drive, one Samsung 2.5-inch 512GB internal SSD and forty-five ACTi network cameras.