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.

As hard drives stared at oblivion in the Ultrabook segment, with Intel planning to slim the specification down even further, leaving room for nothing but bare SSDs, WD pulled a rabbit out of its hat with the revolutionary 5 mm-thick hybrid HDD. Following its September 10 announcement, 5 mm-thick hybrid HDDs have reportedly sparked great interest in notebook vendors, which prompted WD to pull its mass-production schedule from Q1 2013 to end of 2012.

Western Digital Corp. today announced at its Investor Day a capital allocation plan that includes the adoption by its Board of Directors of a cash dividend policy and an increased authorization of $1.5 billion under its share repurchase program. At its webcast Investor Day, 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.

Under the dividend policy, the company intends to pay a quarterly cash dividend on its common stock beginning with the quarter ending Sept. 28, 2012. Directors declared today a dividend of $0.25 per common share, payable on Oct. 15, 2012, to the company's shareholders of record as of Sept. 28, 2012.

WD, a subsidiary of Western Digital Corp. today announced it is sampling a 5 mm-thin hard disk drive featuring hybrid technology. WD has developed hard drives slim enough for integration into today's thinnest notebook PCs, which provide high-capacity storage and robustness while featuring instant-on and application performance similar to today's client solid state drives (SSDs). The new technologies will be showcased during WD's Investor Day, Sept. 13, 2012.

"Mobile devices are becoming smaller, thinner, lighter and more responsive," said Matt Rutledge, vice president of client storage solutions at WD. "Working with our technology partners, WD has developed new 5 mm hard drives that enable high capacity storage along with excellent performance and superior economics to allow our customers to expand their thin offerings."

Western Digital Corp. today announced that Steve Milligan will become chief executive officer of the company on January 2, 2013, succeeding John Coyne, who is retiring on that same date. Milligan, 49, is currently president of Western Digital and will retain the title of president when he becomes CEO. Following Coyne's retirement, Milligan will be appointed to the Western Digital board of directors.

"We are grateful to John Coyne for his many years of dedication and strong leadership," said Tom Pardun, chairman of the board. "He and his team have strategically positioned the company at the center of the storage industry, as a consistently profitable market and technology leader well positioned to address the tremendous opportunities in the changing digital world.

WD, a subsidiary of Western Digital Corporation, and a world leader in external storage and connected home solutions, is combining two high-speed technologies to produce one of the fastest and most robust dual-storage systems ever offered. Supported by the Mac OS X operating system, the new My Book VelociRaptor Duo dual-drive storage system becomes the ultimate storage drive for performance hungry Mac computer users and creative professionals.

My Book VelociRaptor Duo provides ultimate speed and performance with two 1 TB 10,000 RPM WD VelociRaptor drives along with two Thunderbolt ports. The 2 TB dual-drive storage system is ideal for editing high resolution video, 3D rendering, graphic design, and other demanding digital media applications. This boost in performance delivers solid state drive (SSD) -like data transfer rates of up to 400 MB/s for greater work-flow productivity. The dual-drive storage system offers RAID 0 for performance or RAID 1 for protection; and the twin Thunderbolt ports offer daisy-chaining multiple My Book VelociRaptor Duo drives and other high performance peripherals without impacting data transfer speeds or performance. The My Book VelociRaptor Duo also comes complete with a Thunderbolt cable in the box and is user-serviceable.

WD, a subsidiary of Western Digital Corporation, today announced that it has added the USB 3.0 interface to its line of My Passport for Mac portable hard drives and increased capacity for Mac computer users up to an unmatched 2 TB. Popular among students and other Mac users who take their digital content everywhere, the My Passport for Mac with USB 3.0 allows users to quickly and conveniently take advantage of the faster transfer speeds USB 3.0 provides when connecting the drive to their MacBook computer or MacBook Air computer with that interface.

While continuing to provide a sleek and slim design, the My Passport drive also has been a favorite among consumers and professionals who have safety and security at the top of the list of requirements for portable drives, which is why the My Passport for Mac includes password protection and hardware encryption features to protect content from unauthorized use or access. The My Passport for Mac drive is also compatible out of the box with Apple Time Machine for easy backup to further protect valuable files.

Western Digital's new high-capacity 2.5-inch hard drive, the WD Green WD20NPVT made an appearance in Japanese ground stores. Strangely enough, while the drive is built in the 2.5-inch form-factor, it is 15 mm-thick, making it unfit for most notebooks. The drive provides a staggering 2 TB of unformatted capacity, and features IntelliPower variable spindle speed (4,500-5,400 RPM?), 8 MB cache, SATA 3 Gb/s interface, 0.2W idle (parked) and 1.7W (active) power consumption. It is priced at 18,800 JPY (US $240).

Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ: WDC) today reported revenue of $12.5 billion and net income of $1.6 billion, or $6.58 per share for fiscal year 2012, compared to fiscal 2011 revenue of $9.5 billion and net income of $726 million, or $3.09 per share. On a non-GAAP basis, fiscal 2012 net income was $2.1 billion or $8.61 per share, compared to fiscal 2011 net income of $770 million or $3.28 per share. Both the GAAP and non-GAAP fiscal 2012 results include results from the company's newly acquired HGST subsidiary from the acquisition date of March 8 through the end of fiscal 2012.

For its fourth fiscal quarter ended June 29, 2012, the company reported revenue of $4.8 billion, hard-drive shipments of 71.0 million and net income of $745 million, or $2.87 per share. On a non-GAAP basis, net income was $872 million, or $3.35 per share.2 In the year-ago quarter, the company reported revenue of $2.4 billion, net income of $158 million, or $0.67 per share, and shipped 53.8 million hard drives. Non-GAAP net income in the year-ago quarter was $193 million, or $0.81 per share.

Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ: WDC) today announced the appointments of Tim Leyden and Mike Cordano as presidents of the company's WD and HGST subsidiaries, respectively, reporting to Steve Milligan, president of Western Digital Corporation. Milligan reports to John Coyne, who continues in his role as chief executive officer of Western Digital Corporation.

Before the acquisition of HGST by Western Digital in March 2012, Leyden served as chief operating officer of Western Digital and Cordano served as executive vice president, sales and marketing and president, branded business division of HGST.

Century Japan released a new drive dock (model: CMRK-S4) for PCs with vacant 5.25-inch drive bays, which provides four 2.5-inch SATA hot-swap drive bays, supporting drives as thick as 12.5 mm (such as WD VelociRaptor without its heatsink, or Seagate Cheetah. The four bays have lockable caddies. Since this is a passive dock, the SATA connections are relayed to the back. The four bays are cooled by a 40 mm exhaust fan on the back. The fan spins at speeds of around 4,000 RPM, with noise output around 25 dBA. Measuring 145.7 x 149.3 x 41.6 mm (WxDxH), the dock weighs 500 g, owing to its mostly metallic built. Slated for early August, it is expected to be priced at 3,980 JPY (US $50).

Synology Inc. today announced the compatibility of its DiskStation & RackStation lineup with WD Red NAS 3.5" hard drives that include WD30EFRX (3 TB), WD20EFRX (2 TB), and WD10EFRX (1 TB). The above models have successfully passed stress and compatibility test from Synology, and proven to be compatible with select Synology DiskStation & RackStation from the x12, x11, x10, x09, and x08 series.

WD Red hard drives are designed specifically for home and small office NAS server. Featuring NASware and 3D Active Balance Plus technologies, the WD Red line is enhanced to drive reliability, improve overall performance, and simplify integration process.

WD, a world leader in external storage and connected home solutions, today introduced powerful new collaboration and file management features, including Dropbox integration, in the next generation of its popular WD 2go mobile app for their personal cloud products, the My Book Live, My Book Live Duo and My Net N900 Central HD router with storage.

WD's personal cloud products provide shared storage on the home network, letting customers centralize their important documents, photos, videos and music in one place as well as automatically backup all the computers in their home. With the WD 2go app customers can access and share that content from outside the home on their mobile devices.

Why is July 11th 2012 a big day for Western Digital and the storage industry? The reason is exciting; the data storage expert is to launch, on that day, their new line of product, the Red drives. Bringing to the market a drive made especially for NAS devices, WD Red drives combine with a Thecus NAS will show the storage world what digital data is all about.

WD Red hard drives are designed specifically for NAS systems that range from 1 to 5 bays. The drives are designed and extensively tested for compatibility in the unique 24x7 demanding system requirements of home and small office NAS. Already tested by Thecus engineers, the Red series have passed the test with many of our devices. As announced at the launch, the NAS listed below were showing great performances with the Red HDD mounted inside:

WD, a storage industry leader, today announced the debut of WD Red NAS hard drives, an innovative line of SATA hard drives specifically designed for home and small office NAS (network attached storage) systems with one to five drive bays. Compatibility-tested with top NAS box manufacturers and optimized for power and performance, WD Red hard drives are now shipping in 3.5-inch 1 TB, 2 TB and 3 TB capacities.

The WD Red line features NASware technology, designed to improve reliability and system performance, reduce customer downtime and to simplify the integration process. This new product line addresses the unique environment of NAS and the growing demand for affordable, reliable and compatible storage that reduces customer total cost of ownership. WD Red hard drives also feature 3D Active Balance Plus, an enhanced balance control technology, which significantly improves the overall drive performance and reliability. In an exclusive for WD Red customers, WD is offering free premium 24x7 dedicated support and a three-year limited warranty.

Western Digital Corp. today announced that it is transferring its stock exchange listing to NASDAQ Global Select Market from the New York Stock Exchange. WD shares will begin trading on the NASDAQ exchange beginning June 1, 2012, and the ticker symbol will remain WDC.

"This is part of a new beginning for the new WD following our recent acquisition of HGST to become one of the world's leading storage solutions providers," said John Coyne, chief executive officer. "WD is focused on achieving sustained profitable growth and delivering value to our customers and shareholders. Listing our shares with NASDAQ provides us with a cost-effective stock listing and excellent services and public exposure."

Western Digital Corp. (NYSE: WDC) today announced an increased authorization of $1.5 billion of its common stock under its share repurchase program.

The additional repurchase authorization is effective immediately and extends the program by five years, during which time additional shares can be authorized for repurchase. The amount of purchases will depend on market conditions and corporate considerations. Share repurchases will be made on the open market.