WD announced today that it is now shipping in volume its WD Caviar family of 3.5-inch hard drives based on 320 GB-per-platter technology, the same industry-leading storage areal density that the company has been shipping in its 160 GB-per-platter (320GB capacity) 2.5-inch WD Scorpio drives since October 2007. "Our technology investments and product roadmap execution have resulted in WD shipping the industry's highest areal densities in the industry's two highest volume markets," said Hossein Moghadam, chief technology officer of WD. "Our 250 gigabits-per-square-inch technology already has been reliably serving our 2.5-inch customers, and now it will benefit customers in the 3.5 inch desktop and other product areas."

An initial WD Caviar capacity point of 320GB is available immediately. The 320 GB-per-platter technology will be deployed across WD's desktop, enterprise, CE and external hard drive product lines, including additional capacity points, throughout this calendar year.

"Our technology leadership strengthens WD's position with customers as the preferred hard drive supplier," said Richard E. Rutledge, senior vice president of marketing for the company. "Delivering new technologies first and within WD's high quality and reliability product standards, on time, in volume and backed by top service gives our customers, partners and suppliers a competitive advantage, as well."

The WD Caviar family of 3.5-inch desktop hard drives delivers high performance with 300MB/s transfer rate, cache sizes up to 16 MB, Native Command Queuing (NCQ), and cool operating temperatures and quiet operation, enabling customers to integrate WD products in the most demanding desktop and external storage environments.