Western Digital, a worldwide storage leader, today announced it is shipping the WD Scorpio Blue 7 mm hard drive, the latest addition to its mobile hard drive family and the 2.5-inch drive with the lowest power consumption on the market today. Specified to a best-in-class 400Gs shock tolerance, the new single-platter WD Scorpio Blue small form factor hard drives are available in 500 GB and 320 GB capacities and the drives' compatibility with industry-standard 9.5 mm slots make them ideal storage options for mainstream notebooks as well as slimmer notebook and Ultrabook devices that require a 7 mm drive height.

"Consumers want thin and light personal computers, but the limited storage capacity of SSD-based notebooks forces them to pick and choose what files to bring from their library," said Matt Rutledge, vice president and general manager for WD client storage products. "With the release of the new WD Scorpio Blue 7 mm mobile hard drives, WD is able to offer capacity, reliability and data-protection features combined with excellent power management all in a slim form factor perfect for thin and light notebooks."

Western Digital today introduced the first 2 TB capacity portable drive dedicated for Mac customers, My Passport Studio. This new standard in high storage capacity, along with Apple Time Machine compatibility for quick and easy automatic backup of Mac hard drives, allows Mac users to use one drive for the protection and transport of virtually all their digital content, everywhere they go.

The new My Passport Studio portable drive maintains its elegant and protective all-metal casing to complement the MacBook Pro or MacBook Air, providing the beautiful aesthetic that Mac users expect while increasing storage capacity to 2 TB, enough space for approximately 400,000 photos, 240 hours of video or 500,000 songs.

HGST (formerly Hitachi Global Storage Technologies and now a Western Digital company) today introduced the world's first 4 TB enterprise-class hard drive family, the Ultrastar 7K4000.

Ushering in a new generation of 512e Advanced Format drives, the Ultrastar 7K4000 family provides space-efficient, high-performance, low-power storage for traditional enterprises as well as for the explosive big data and cloud/Internet markets where storage density, watt-per-gigabyte and cost-per-GB are critical parameters. Hungry for massive storage, cloud and Internet businesses are redefining the datacenter by designing new types of servers and storage architectures to help manage explosive petabyte (PB) growth. Critical to their datacenter infrastructure is the ability to scale and efficiently manage performance, power and storage space to help reduce total cost of ownership (TCO).

Western Digital today announced the next generation of its top-selling My Passport line of portable hard drives, offering consumers a fresh new enclosure design and the first-ever 2 TB capacity in a portable drive.

Now available in five popular colors: white, black, silver, blue, and red, with a range of capacities beginning from 500 GB, the new sleeker My Passport portable drives offer digital consumers an appealing array of storage options that reflect their personal style. Additionally, the new My Passport drives offer WD SmartWare automatic backup software and WD Security for password protection and hardware encryption.

Western Digital, the world's leader in external storage solutions, is now shipping its first external hard drive with Thunderbolt technology - the My Book Thunderbolt Duo dual-drive storage system.

The new My Book Thunderbolt Duo provides professionals and Mac enthusiasts with five primary areas of performance, double-safe data protection and flexibility; ultra-fast data transfer rates for greater work efficiency; a 4 TB/6 TB large-capacity; customized dual-drive storage system with RAID 0, 1 and JBOD options; customer serviceable drives; and dual Thunderbolt ports for daisy-chaining multiple My Book Thunderbolt Duo devices or other peripherals.

Western Digital Corp. today announced that it has completed its acquisition of Viviti Technologies Ltd. (formerly Hitachi Global Storage Technologies), effective Mar. 8, 2012, for $3.9 billion in cash and 25 million shares of WDC common stock valued at approximately $0.9 billion. Hitachi, Ltd. now owns approximately 10 percent of WDC shares outstanding, and it has the right to designate two individuals to the board of directors of WD.

The new WD will operate with WD Technologies (WD) and HGST as wholly owned subsidiaries. Aggregated revenues of the two companies in 2011 were $15 billion. As chief executive officer of WD, John Coyne heads up the new office of the CEO, with Steve Milligan as president, Tim Leyden as chief operating officer and Wolfgang Nickl as chief financial officer.

Western Digital (WD), secured an approval (conditional), from the European Union regulator in-charge of competition that enables it to go ahead and purchase Hitachi's hard disk drive business. WD is purchasing Hitachi's HDD assets for US $4.3 billion. "The proposed divestiture will ensure that competition in the industry is fully restored before the merger is implemented," EU Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said in a statement. What makes the EU approval conditional is the fact that WD had to first agree to sell several of its production operations, which it did, to Toshiba, early this month.

Western Digital, a leader in the desktop, mobile, high-capacity enterprise and consumer markets for hard drives, today announced the availability of its third-generation WD S25 SAS hard drives, serving the performance-optimized, mission-critical enterprise server and storage market. Shipping now, the new 2.5-inch, 10,000 RPM, WD S25 with SAS 6 Gb/s interface hard drives offer IT professionals a more advanced array of ultra-reliable and efficient, high-performance storage, available in capacities of 300 GB, 450 GB, 600 GB, and 900 GB. The WD S25 line is designed for the most demanding applications such as online transaction processing and multi-tiered networked storage arrays.

Western Digital, the world's leader in digital storage solutions, has announced that it is offering to customers of its WD Sentinel DX4000 storage server an offsite data storage service that improves data protection for the small business owners who rely on WD Sentinel to protect their precious business information. WD partnered with KeepVault, which was recently added to the AuthenTec line of services, to serve WD's Sentinel small office storage server customers.

Toshiba Corporation (TOKYO:6502) today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement with Western Digital Corporation (NYSE: WDC) on Toshiba's acquisition of certain of Western Digital's 3.5-inch HDD manufacturing equipment and related intellectual property, and the transfer to Western Digital of Toshiba Storage Device (Thailand) Co., Ltd. (TSDT), Toshiba's wholly-owned HDD manufacturing subsidiary located in Thailand.

Toshiba and Western Digital aim to complete the acquisition and transfer by March of this year after obtaining approval from the relevant authorities. Under the agreement, Toshiba will acquire the following equipment and intellectual property from Western Digital.

• Manufacturing equipment for 3.5-inch HDDs for use in desktop PCs and other consumer applications, plus related intellectual property; and
• Manufacturing equipment for near-line HDDs for server applications.

Western Digital Corp. (NYSE: WDC) today reported that it has reached an agreement with Toshiba Corporation to divest certain assets to address the requirements of regulatory agencies that have conditionally approved or are continuing to review the company's planned acquisition of Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (HGST). The asset package covered by the agreement will enable Toshiba to manufacture and sell 3.5-inch hard drives for the desktop and consumer electronics markets and will enhance its ability to manufacture and sell 3.5-inch hard drives for near-line (business critical) applications. The divestiture transaction is subject to review by regulatory agencies in certain jurisdictions.

WD also reported that it has agreed, subject to completion of the divestiture transaction, to purchase Toshiba Storage Device (Thailand) Company Limited (TSDT). TSDT manufactured hard drives but has not resumed operations after the recent Thailand flooding. The principal assets of TSDT are its Thailand property, facilities and employees. Subject to completion of the transaction, WD plans to integrate these facilities and employees into its Thailand operations. The financial terms of the two agreements were not disclosed.

Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group, SanDisk, and Western Digital today revealed "Project Phenix" (working title), an initiative that will give consumers an easier and faster way to organize, store and move their high definition digital movies and TV shows - including new releases in up to full 1080p quality - across multiple devices. In addition to local storage, the content will also be backed up via the UltraViolet industry standard as well as other cloud-based services.

The project is being developed by the newly formed Secure Content Storage Association (SCSA). Established as an LLC, this coalition will create and license solutions that secure high definition and other premium copyright-protected content on local and portable hard drives, and flash memory products such as USB flash drives, SD cards and solid state disk drives (SSDs). Once content is downloaded to a hard drive or flash memory product, it could then be accessed, online or offline, on any SCSA-enabled device such as a connected TV, laptop, Blu-ray player, tablet, mobile phone or game console. The optimized content will be made easily available for purchase via digital download, digital files bundled with physical media, kiosks in retail stores, or other means of secure digital delivery.

In what could alleviate high prices of hard disk drives (HDDs) after the devastating flood in Thailand that affected HDD foundries, industry sources predict that the reconstruction efforts of these foundries, led by Western Digital, will pay off to a large extant. In Q1 2012 alone, global volumes of HDDs are expected to restore to 80% of what they were before the floods. The global production of HDDs will increase to 140-145 million units.

HDD vendors across the board have exhausted their inventories in Dec-Jan when they supply PC/notebook ODMs their inventories of HDDs, but they haven't hiked quotes due to the off-season that followed. However, the flood situation isn't the only factor that will affect HDD prices. With increase in prices of raw materials, components, and labour-costs, HDD prices are expected to go up 30-40%.

Western Digital, the world's leader in external storage solutions, will demonstrate the ultra-fast data transfer rates of its upcoming My Book Thunderbolt Duo dual-drive storage system at the Macworld/iWorld show (booth #401). Thunderbolt technology will dramatically improve workflow speed and efficiencies for enthusiasts and professionals dealing with large digital files such as video, audio and still photos.

Thunderbolt technology is capable of producing up to 10 gigabits per second of throughput on each of two channels in both directions. Users can experience very fast read/write speeds especially during applications such as video editing, 3D rendering, and other intense graphics projects. To put Thunderbolt's speed into perspective, HD media creators will be able to transfer a standard size full-length HD movie in less than 30 seconds, or backup an entire year of continuous music (approx. 8,600 hours of music) in roughly 10 minutes.

Western Digital Corp. today reported revenue of $2.0 billion, hard-drive unit shipments of 28.5 million and net income of $145 million, or $0.61 per share, for its second fiscal quarter ended Dec. 30, 2011. Excluding charges and expenses related to the Thailand flooding and the planned acquisition of Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (HGST), non-GAAP net income was $358 million, or $1.51 per share. During the quarter, the company incurred charges and expenses of $199 million related to the flooding and expenses of $14 million associated with the planned acquisition of HGST.

In the year-ago quarter, the company reported revenue of $2.5 billion, net income of $225 million, or $0.96 per share, and shipped 52.2 million hard drives.

Western Digital, the world's leader in digital storage solutions, today introduced My Book Live Duo, a personal cloud storage system that combines the benefits of shared storage and remote access with double-safe backup or increased capacity of a dual-drive system with RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) technology.

Welcome to the TechPowerUp 2011 PC technology Christmas special. We hope that you will enjoy reading it while tucking into your turkey, Christmas presents and a little too much wine... In this article, we go through the technology of 2011 that has had the most significance, the most impact and was generally the most talked about. It's not necessarily the best tech of 2011 which is the most significant though, since lemons can be just as significant as the ground-breakers in how they fail to deliver - and the backlash that goes with it.

January: Intel Sandy Bridge i5 & i7

Released on January 9th, the new Intel Core i5 & i7 processors were based on Intel's second generation Core architecture built on a 32 nm production process (HEXUS review). They included an IGP (Integrated Graphics Processor) physically on the same piece of silicon along with HyperThreading. These new dual and quad core processors soundly beat all previous generations of Intel processors in terms of processing performance, heat, power use, features and left AMD in the dust. Therefore, Intel badly needed some competition from AMD and unless you have been living under a rock, you will know how that turned out in October with the launch of Bulldozer. Sandy Bridge was a sound win and is generally considered to be the only architecture worth considering at this point. The i5-2500K is currently at the sweet spot of price/performance. It comes at a stock speed of 3.3 GHz, but typically overclocks to an amazing 4.5 - 5 GHz with a decent air cooler and without too much difficulty in getting there. Models in the budget i3 range were released at various times later. See this Wikipedia article for details.

Way back in 2008, we reported that Seagate was lowering warranties of its hard disk drives from 5 years to 3. This trend quickly spread throughout the HDD industry and unsurprisingly, wasn't something that customers were too happy about. Now, Western Digital is lowering the warranty on some of its HDD lines from 3 years to a mere 2, with the affected lines being the Caviar Blue, Caviar Green and Scorpio Blue. Lines not affected are the Caviar Black, Scorpio Black, A/V drives and externals. Also, as the stock feeds through the channel, there will be a transition period where the same model in a store will have either a 2 or 3 year warranty, depending on its serial number, which can be checked on WD's support site. It will be interesting to see if retailers will clearly differentiate to customers which drives have which warranty, as it might be rather convenient for them not to.

Channel partners have received a letter from SelectWD about this:

The recent Thailand floods appear to be taking a bigger toll than expected, with the effects of the shortages to be felt all the way into 2013, according to market research firm IDC. This isn't helped by the fact that the largest manufacturer of HDDs, Western Digital, was hit the hardest. As the situation is so volatile, companies such as HP, Dell & Lenovo are keeping watch on the market daily and are even sometimes having to accept drives of a lower spec if they are to ship some systems at all. As expected, the retail purchaser of hard disk drives comes bottom of the allocation list. IDCs John Rydning said in a statement: "I think the most painful period will occur now through February of next year. We expect the situation will improve, but it won't feel as if things are back to normal until 2013". There's more detail and analysis over at Network World.

Western Digital Corp. (NYSE:WDC) today is updating its financial outlook for the December quarter and the progress to date of its operations recovery effort in Thailand. The company is also providing its view of the industry conditions for the December 2011 quarter and beyond.

Western Digital Corp. today reported that on November 18, 2011, an arbitration award of $525 million was rendered against the company by a sole arbitrator in a pending confidential arbitration action in Minnesota. The amount of the award does not include prejudgment interest, which will be subsequently determined. The award involves claims brought by Seagate Technology LLC against WD and one employee who was formerly employed by Seagate, alleging misappropriation of confidential information and trade secrets.

"We do not believe there is any basis in law or fact for the damage award of the arbitrator," said John Coyne, president and chief executive officer. "We believe the company acted properly at all times and we will vigorously challenge the award. This does not affect our ability to conduct our operations, to complete the recovery and recommencement of our Thailand operations or, subject to obtaining the required regulatory approvals, to consummate our planned acquisition of Hitachi GST."

The recent dreadful flooding in Thailand has forced the closure of several hard drive factories. The immediate concerns of course, are for the health and wellbeing of the people living and working in the area. The wider concern is the severe restriction in hard drive manufacturing capacity. Already, prices have doubled or tripled, depending on the exact model affected. The biggest HD manufacturer, Western Digital, has been hit the hardest, as IDC predicts that up to 75% of its production will be shut down. This means, that the big corporate HDD customers, those like HP and Dell, who build computer systems in large volumes, will get whatever inventory is available to fully satisfy their needs. Whatever is left is then sold on to the retail channel, for ordinary consumers to buy. IDC believes that hard disk production will reach pre-flood levels by around March, but that HDD levels by then will be very low. The prices should go through the roof then, in the meantime. As expected, this will also increase the prices of complete systems, as such a price hike is too much to absorb fully.

Western Digital Corp. (NYSE: WDC) today reported revenue of $2.7 billion, hard-drive unit shipments of 58 million and net income of $239 million, or $1.01 per share, for its first fiscal quarter ended Sept. 30, 2011. The company's results include expenses of $21 million associated with the planned acquisition of Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) announced Mar. 7, 2011 and unrelated litigation accruals. Excluding these expenses, non-GAAP net income was $260 million or $1.10 per share.

In the year-ago quarter, the company reported revenue of $2.4 billion, net income of $197 million, or $0.84 per share, and shipped 51 million hard drives. The company generated $352 million in cash from operations during the September quarter, ending with total cash and cash equivalents of $3.7 billion. For more information, refer to First Quarter Fiscal 2012 Investor Information Summary.

Western Digital Corp. today announced that production of hard drives in its facilities close to Bangkok, Thailand, will be constrained in the current quarter due to the severe flooding in Thailand. The flooding is causing problems with the region's infrastructure, including transportation and utilities, and has resulted in the inundation of some supplier facilities and employee homes. The company is gratified to report that its approximately 37,000 Thailand-based employees are deemed safe at this time.

The company is working with its suppliers to maximize throughput and availability of parts in order to best meet the needs of its customers.

Western Digital, the world's leader in external storage solutions and maker of the popular WD TV media player family, today introduced the next generation of its WD TV Live streaming media player, an easy to use Wi-Fi enabled media player that is the first in its category to deliver the Spotify music service.

WD TV Live features WD's newest intuitive user interface that delivers the latest hit movies, TV shows, music and online services from companies like Netflix, Hulu Plus and Blockbuster directly to your TV. The new streaming media player connects to the Internet wirelessly or through an Ethernet connection, with the high performance 802.11n wireless connectivity supporting Full-HD 1080p video resolution.