Western Digital is the world’s second largest maker of data storage products – a data storage pioneer providing cost-effective storage solutions for people and organizations that collect, manage and use digital information.
WD is a global leader in the development and manufacture of hard drives and solid state drives for internal, external, portable and shared storage applications. WD hard drives are used in desktop and notebook computers, mobile devices, corporate networks and home entertainment equipment. WD solid-state drives are used in embedded applications such as network communications, industrial, medical, military and aerospace markets.
WD was founded in 1970 and began designing and manufacturing hard drives in 1988. Its storage products are marketed to leading OEMs, systems manufacturers, select resellers and retailers under the Western Digital and WD brand names. From its headquarters in Lake Forest, California, the company employs about 50,000 people worldwide at manufacturing facilities in California, Malaysia and Thailand; design facilities in Southern and Northern California, Colorado and Thailand; and sales offices around the world.
Markets
The data storage industry annually ships some 540 million hard drives. Industry observers foresee a compound annual unit growth rate of 5.6 percent for the years through 2013. The industry’s growth is spurred by several factors, including wider applications of storage technology; rising demand for easy portability; greater consumer need for data backups; and growth of such capacity-hungry uses as high-definition video and surveillance systems.
Present trends in applications of storage technology favor products offering higher capacity, smaller size, longer service life, simpler installation, greater energy conservation and better environmental acceptability.
Hard drives, which today house virtually all the information on the Internet, merge sophisticated magnetic, mechanical and electronic technologies to store information at very high densities. Hard drive technology enabled the development of personal computers, movies-on-demand, digital video recorders and digital music jukeboxes, and contributed to the popularity of digital still and video cameras.
Solid-state products meet the high performance, high reliability and multi-year product lifecycle requirements of embedded computing and other demanding markets. Although more costly per unit of storage than hard drives, solid-state products provide higher read speeds in the highest-end servers and are more resistant to shock and vibration in mobile applications.
Products
WD serves desktop computer users with a wide range of 3.5-inch WD Caviar hard drives in both EIDE and Serial ATA interfaces for PC and Macintosh® computers. All feature cool, quiet, power-conserving operation.
A large family of 2.5-inch WD Scorpio hard drives is offered for notebook computing, also featuring high performance and low power consumption.
WD's enterprise storage offerings, including WD S25, WD RE and WD VelociRaptor lines, deliver the high performance, reliability and capacity required for servers, network attached storage devices, storage area networks, workstations, RAID servers, medical imaging, gaming and video/broadcast applications.
The company’s family of WD AV drives provides quiet, high-capacity, power-efficient video-streaming for users of digital video recorders and other home entertainment products.
WD external hard drives and storage appliances employ all the popular interfaces for network storage and direct attachment to computers. They are ideal for data backup, extra storage and offer plug-and-play convenience as well as the ultimate in pocket-sized portability of massive amounts of digital data.
WD’s family of SiliconDrive solid-state storage products, now in its third generation, offers a wide variety of capacities and interface options for superior performance and low total cost of operation. Uses range from the most sophisticated and demanding medical, military and aerospace installations to read-only applications in gaming.
WD enables content stored on hard drives to be more easily enjoyed with its entertainment products, including its DVR expanders and WD TV media players.
Western Digital Technologies, Inc., uses the registered trademarks My Book, WD Caviar, WD Scorpio, WD VelociRaptor and SiliconDrive as well as the trademarks My Passport, WD Caviar Black, WD Caviar Blue, WD Caviar Green, WD TV, WD Scorpio Black, WD Scorpio Blue and the WD logo. All other brand and product names mentioned herein are the property of their respective companies.
Western Digital’s common shares are listed on the New York Stock Exchange, symbol WDC. Its Web site may be found at www.westerndigital.com.
