Archive for: WD
While residents in parts of Thailand hit by the worst flooding in over fifty years are stock piling non-perishable food and clean drinking water, computer manufacturers (and maybe even you) are beginning to stockpile hard drives. The image above shows a not so dry Western Digital factory that is reportedly (and obviously) completely shut down. There are also reports other hard drive manufacturers such as Seagate are looking at significantly reduced output. Though in Seagate’s case, whom is still running at 100% production, it is component suppliers who are facing production cuts due to the floods.
The end result according to Western Digital CEO John Coyne is “significantly reduced” hard drive supply in 2012. Apple CEO Tim Cook also touched on the looming hard drive during Tuesday’s earnings call by saying shortages are guaranteed in following quarters: “I’m virtually certain there will be an overall industry shortage of disk drives as a result of the disaster”.
If you’re a data hoarder picking up a couple extra drives now instead of later may be a good idea. On the flip side, SSD manufacturers and HDD manufacturers looking at increasing SSD production could see a benefit from the HDD shortage. Now would be a great time to to more heavily push the much more efficient, faster, and overall better technology.
Via: TIMN | AllThingsD | CRN | SeekingAlpha
Hardware giant, Western Digital, is about to get a bit more muscle in the fight against competing hard drive manufacturer, Seagate. Today, March 7th, 2011, WD announced that they were purchasing Hitachi Global Storage Technologies for ~$4.3 billion USD. In total, $3.5 billion in cash as well as $750 million worth of shares will trade hands. According to Western Digital CEO, John Coyne, scale is the sole source behind the purchase, citing the need for more size and R&D spending to combat rival Seagate. The CEO also hopes to offer a greater selection of products for consumers under the WD brand, further increasing the company’s own value.
Last week we touched on some new and interesting news possibly coming from Seagate. And wouldn’t you know it, our guestimate was spot on (as was many other peoples’).
The new Seagate Momentus XT was put through it’s paces by Hothardware and found to be “in between a WD Scorpio Blue and Seagate Barracuda 7200.11″ in terms of overall speed. So no, this hybrid tech won’t be a worth contender to SSD”s and users looking for the ultimate in speed. For that, a blazing fast, wallet slaying SSD is still your best bet.
If it’s actual benchies you’re looking for, the average times for the Momentus XT Hyrbird are as follows: ~110MBps/~100MBps read/write. Not out of this world, but something to consider I guess when deciding between HDD or SSD, no?
For the rest, you’ll have to give Hothardware your eyes and attention a bit longer.
Speed, like drugs, hobbies, food, and smoking is addictive. With speed, the adrenaline rush that follows is the natural high for some. In the tech world, while we ourselves may not be moving hundreds of miles per hour in the dopest ride, we do have certain objects that move at high velocity — hard drives. As far as old spinners go, the general rule of thumb is that the faster the drive spins, the faster it will perform. Now, this isn’t exact as a few other factors such as connection interface, number of platters, and cache size also affect the end result. But if you want to soon move from merely “fast” to really fast, Western Digital has a new set of VelociRaptor hard drives they’d love you to take a look at.
While not technically revealed “officially” yet, the announcement is due soon..as in within the next couple weeks soon. The new found speed will come courtesy of the drives utilizing the newer, faster data SATA 3.0 (6Gbps) protocol. Other notable mentions that have no tie to speed include a small 2.5″ form factor wrapped in the 3.5″ “IcePack” cooler allowing easy installation in your standard sized drive bay. Another nod goes to the 3ms average latency time which I might add is pretty damn fast for your standard “moving” hard drive.
Like many other hard drives coming onto the market, the new VelociRaptors will also feature a “NoTouch Ramp” technology which simply means the drive head never touches the actual drive meaning longer life all around and less chances for hard drive failures — yay.
Finally, one corporate-grade feature that is moving down to this prosumer drive is that of “Rotary Acceleration Feed Forward (RAFF)” This little spiffy piece of tech will help the drive cope with high vibration situations. In the corporate world, certain environments such as the drive being stuffed in a large drive array within a server farm is the most obvious image that comes immediately to mind. For consumers who won’t really ever move their computer or face the same levels of vibration in the home environment, this feature likely won’t return any investment. Still, it’s nice that WD included it.
In my personal experience with a few VelociRaptor drives currently on the market as well as seeing countless reviews, benchmarks, and hands-on videos comparing these drives to comparable SSD’s has left me rather unimpressed. The price premium for the ‘Raptors doesn’t come anywhere close to balancing out on any return in investment (read: speed). Even still, these new drives will no doubt win over countless geeks and speed freaks for yet another generation.
Will WD actually hit that claimed 15% increase in speed on this next generation of ‘Raptor drives?
Bright Side of News
Tired of waiting around for USB 3.0 external drives to hit the scene? Me too. Well, I was until I stumbled across Western Digital’s new MyBook 3.0 external hard drive. The 3.0 addition to the name of course highlights the migration from USB 2.0 to 3.0 internals meaning these new drives will whisk away your precious files at up to 5 Gbps. If you’re keeping note, that’s roughly 10 times more than your standard USB 2.0 drive.
But the drive itself isn’t everything as you need the appropriate hardware on your PC too. On this front, PC manufacturers have drug their feet as well in regards to adding USB 3.0 support. But there’s hope yet.
If you fancy the one and only 1TB MyBook 3.0 and don’t have any USB 3.0 compliant cards/ports on your computer, WD will sell you a kit that includes the drive and a USB 3.0 PCIe card for ~$375 USD. Got your own hardware already? Super. Shave off about $40 as the drive only option will set you back ~$331 USD.
As USB 3.0 proliferates to other manufacturers and devices, expect the prices to naturally fall. It all depends on how anxious you are. Would you drop three and a half bennies on 1TB of USB 3.0 storage or are you happy as a clam, content enough to wait it out for lower prices?
TechShout
- November 16, 2009 10:47 am
The current crop of hard drives max out at 2 TB. If you think this is merely adequate you’re no doubt looking forward to when 10TB flash drives are $5 at the dollar store. As cool as it is to dream, we still have several years before storage becomes that cheap or dense. Since I can’t give you news of a 10 exabyte drive, I’ll patch over the wound with a 3TB drive. Is it here? Not quite. But it’s coming. WD was the first to break out with the 2TB hard disk which was a feat of size and storage technologies. As is usual in the technology world, if you’re sitting still you’re moving backwards.
According to Dr Geoff Barrall, founder and CEO of Drobo, WD will release 3TB hard drives in 2010. If there’s 3TB single drives that means we’ll get 6TB dual drive variants. *smiles* The evidence behind his claims come from the fact that Drobo will be offering a 3TB drive next year — Drobo gets their drives from WD. You put the pieces together. The densities required to hit a 3TB drive (roughly 500Gbit/sq in….and 750GB/platter) are certainly achievable in the near term. Can manufactures do it? I know it’s not an exabyte, but will it suffice?
Ubergizmo > The Register
When 1TB just isn’t enough relax and know that there is something bigger out there. WD will be launching a 2TB hard drive this week according to Electronista and Fudzilla. The 2TB is officially dubbed the “The Caviar Green 2000GB WD20EADS”. Whew! Talk about a mouthful! Said drive reportedly has a seek time of 8.9ms and spins at 7200 RPM’s. It earns the green title because at times of low demand will slow down to 5400 RPM’s in order to save a couple of branches that I’m sure over time will equal out to a tree or two. Good job WD. Price isn’t released yet but rumored to be between $210 and $240. Not a bad deal at all.
Source: Electronista, Fudzilla, Stealth Computer *pic*
Western digital is warming up to the Mac camp today and releasing two new types of hard drives designed for Mac’s. The first is the popular My Passport series. The Mac Passports are encased in a shock-resistant case and come pre-formatted for Mac use in 320GB and 500GB flavors. Unfortunately, they only support USB, Firewire is no where to be found. The drives are advertised as being Time Machine compatible right out of the box. Second is the My Book for Mac. As of now they only available in 1 TB capacities, however I’m sure 2TB isn’t far behind. Feature wise they are the same as the Passport except for the obvious fact that they are for desktop use only as they will not run solely on USB as they need a power outlet as well. Pricing for the drives is as follows: My Passport’s $130 for the 320GB and $180 for the 500GB. My Book: $180 for 1TB. All in all, not bad prices.
Source: Electronista
