WD(R) Launches Industry's First 2 TB Hard Drives

WD's Eco-friendly, Cool and Quiet, WD Caviar(R) Green(TM) Drive Marks the Largest Capacity Hard Drive in the Industry

LAKE FOREST, Calif. Jan. 27 -- WD (NYSE:WDC) today announced the first 2 terabyte (TB) hard drive - the world's highest capacity drive and the latest addition to WD's popular, environmentally friendly, cool and quiet, WD(R) Caviar(R) Green(TM) hard drive family. This new 3.5-inch platform is based on WD's industry-leading 500 GB/platter technology (with 400 Gb/in2 areal density) with 32 MB cache, producing drives with capacities of up to 2 TB.

"While some in the industry wondered if the end consumer would buy a 1 TB drive, already some 10 percent of 3.5-inch hard drive sales are at the 1 TB level or higher, serving demand from video applications and expanding consumer media libraries," said Mark Geenen, President of Trend Focus. "The 2 TB hard drives will continue to satisfy end user's insatiable desire to store more data on ever larger hard drives."

WD Caviar Green is one of the most successful product lines in the company's recent history with its third-generation GreenPower(TM) technology, now providing 2 TB of proven reliable storage for today's high-resolution files and graphics. WD Caviar Green drives are designed for use in USB/FireWire(R)/eSATA external hard drives, desktop computers, workstations, and desktop RAID environments.

"Saving power without sacrificing storage capacity is what consumers want, and what many businesses are requiring today. With the launch of the new WD Caviar Green 2 TB hard drive, customers receive the additional capacities needed to operate today's highly advanced programs and high-resolution digital files while using less power than typical drives with similar performance and capacities," said Jim Morris, WD senior vice president and general manager of client systems.

Rock Solid Mechanical Architecture, Cool, Quiet Hard Drives

A number of advanced technologies enable the speed, capacity and performance of WD's Caviar Green 1.5 TB and 2 TB hard drives. Those include: StableTrac(TM), which secures the motor shaft at both ends to reduce system-induced vibration and stabilize platters for accurate tracking during read and write operations; IntelliPower(TM), which fine-tunes the balance of spin speed, transfer rate and caching algorithms designed to deliver both significant power savings and solid performance; IntelliSeek(TM), which calculates optimum seek speeds to lower power consumption, noise, and vibration(1); and NoTouch(TM) ramp load technology, which is designed to ensure the recording head never touches the disk media resulting in significantly less wear to the recording head and media, as well as better drive protection while in transit.

Availability and Pricing

The WD Caviar Green 2 TB is available at select resellers and distributors. MSRP for the WD Caviar Green 2 TB hard drives (model WD20EADS) is $299.00 USD. More information about WD Caviar Green desktop drives may be found on the company's Web site at http://wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=576

About WD

WD, one of the storage industry's pioneers and long-time leaders, provides products and services for people and organizations that collect, manage and use digital information. The company produces reliable, high-performance hard drives that keep users' data accessible and secure from loss. WD applies its storage expertise to consumer products for external, portable and shared storage applications.

WD was founded in 1970. The company's storage products are marketed to leading systems manufacturers, selected resellers and retailers under the Western Digital(R) and WD brand names. Visit the Investor section of the company's Web site (www.westerndigital.com) to access a variety of financial and investor information.

Western Digital, WD, the WD logo and WD Caviar are registered trademarks of Western Digital Technologies, Inc. in the US and other countries; Green, IntelliPower, IntelliSeek, NoTouch, StableTrac, and GreenPower are trademarks of Western Digital Technologies, Inc. All other trademarks herein are property of their respective owner. As used for storage capacity, one megabyte (MB) = one million bytes, one gigabyte (GB) = one billion bytes, and one terabyte (TB) = one trillion bytes. Total accessible capacity varies depending on operating environment. As used for buffer or cache, one megabyte (MB) = 1,048,576 bytes.

  WD Caviar Green 2 TB FAQ:

  --  The WD Caviar Green 2 TB is the largest capacity hard drive on the
      market today.
  --  This new WD Caviar 2 TB hard drive is geared for those customers who
      are seeking maximum capacity while minimizing power consumption for
      their overall system requirements.
  --  Designed with power savings as the primary attribute, GreenPower
      drives from WD deliver exceptional power conservation, ultra-cool,
      quiet operation and solid performance.


  (1) The StableTrac feature is only included on the 2 TB model.

  (Photo:  http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20090127/LA62926)
  (Logo:   http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20000711/WDCLOGO)

EDITOR'S NOTES:
WD product photos:
http://www.westerndigital.com/en/company/branding/digitalphotos.asp#
Product Spec Sheets: http://wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=576
Editorial review samples may be requested via WD's Web site:
http://www.westerndigital.com/en/company/pr/eval_request.asp

First Call Analyst: Bob Blair,
FCMN Contact: Michelle.A.Saffell at wdc.com
(WDC)