August 12 - 3:45pm EDT   Western Digital on Tuesday announced it has began shipping its previously announced VelociRaptor hard drive with a 300GB capacity. While the drive itself is a 2.5-inch unit, it is encased in a 3.5-inch frame that acts as a heatsink for the 10,000RPM disk. WD claims its newest, backplane-compatible Velociraptor offers twice the storage capacity and a third faster performance than the Raptor drives it replaces while running at a lower temperature. [full story]

June 18 - 9:45am EDT   Western Digital is today expanding its MyBook line with its first truly redundant backup drive. Instead of simply using additional drives for extra capacity, the MyBook Mirror Edition comes out of the box set up in a RAID 1 mirror that automatically backs up one drive's information on the second. The layout can be used either to rely solely on an external drive for certain data or to add a second layer to an existing backup. The casing is accessible and lets users swap out the drives either to replace a damaged drive or to swap both drives in the future. [full story]

June 10 - 9:30am EDT   Western Digital hopes today to ramp up the speed of high-end pro and gaming desktops with new Caviar Black desktop drives. The 3.5-inch drive comes in 750GB and 1TB storage levels like many others but includes dual processors as well as 32MB of cache that are said to speed up moving data on the drives. This added edge could be crucial for video editors and others who depend on short load times, the company says. A locked-down motor shaft and a read head that never touches the drive platters both keep the drive quiet and also reduce the physical wear on the disk. [full story]

June 6 - 2:50pm EDT   Western Digital is in the early stages of developing the first hard drive to spin at 20,000RPM, alleged sources have told Bit-Tech. Fears that solid-state drives may overtake its business have led the company to develop a record-setting hard drive that will share the same design philosophy as the VelociRaptor; the hard drive itself will measure 2.5 inches across but sit in a 3.5-inch enclosure that both cools the disk and cuts down on noise. [full story]

June 2 - 10:55am EDT   Western Digital started the week by shipping the 320GB Scorpio Black, its largest-capacity high-speed drive. The 2.5-inch Serial ATA drive enters the increasingly competitive arena of performance notebook drives and includes specs that are normally reserved for desktop drives, including a 7,200RPM spin rate and 16MB of cache to reduce the need for disk access. It also touts measures to protect against damage from the read head; a safe parking technique avoids damage when the drive is switched off, while the more common addition of a free-fall sensor keeps the head away from the magnetic surface in the event of a drop. [full story]

May 21 - 10:50am EDT   Western Digital has introduced a new line of portable hard drives for Macs, the My Passport Studios. The drives are specifically journaled and HFS+-formatted for Macs, and are compatible with Apple's Time Machine utility in Mac OS X Leopard; they are likewise equipped with a FireWire 400 port, in addition to a more standard USB 2.0 connection. A rounded silver case is intended to blend in with other Mac hardware. [full story]

May 20 - 11:10am EDT   Computer makers could soon find themselves without enough supply of notebook hard drives to meet demand, according to reports from those inside the storage business in the Taiwan area. The spiking popularity of micro notebooks with 1.8-inch drives, such as the Eee PC 900, is said to be having a ripple effect on stocks larger 2.5-inch disks. As these major producers haven't increased their production to match, they may be unable to supply system builders with enough drives to meet typically high demand during the summer quarter, the reputed sources say. [full story]

May 15 - 1:40pm EDT   Western Digital on Thursday released its My DVR Expander External Hard Drive USB Edition made to work with DISH Network ViP-series HD DVRs to more than double their recording capacity. The 500GB drive is capable of storing up to 60 hours of HD programming or 300 hours in standard definition. The drives connect to the DVRs via a USB 2.0 connection, unlike WD's previous Expander, which featured an eSATA interface. [full story]

May 6 - 9:20am EDT   Gateway this morning revamped the core of its desktop line to take advantage of newer processors. The FX7026 and the higher-end FX541 series replace earlier models in Gateway's gaming line and all focus on quad-core as well as fast 3D. The base FX7026 starts off with a 2.5GHz Core 2 Quad, 4GB of RAM, and a factory-overclocked GeForce 8800 GT for video. It also includes Western Digital's new 640GB Caviar drive at its $1,100 price point. The FX541 series adds an SLI-capable mainboard with two GPU slots; a stock $1,200 model is similar to its lower-end sibling, while the FX541XT at the very high end includes an overclocked but unnamed CPU as well as dual GeForce 8800 ... [full story]

April 21 - 9:35am EDT   Western Digital says it has blurred the lines between drive classes with the release of the VelociRaptor, the latest generation of its Raptor high-speed hard disks. The 300GB drive is targeted as much at enthusiasts as professionals and holds twice as much as the most recent Raptor while outperforming it: while spinning at the same 10,000RPM, the VelociRaptor benchmarks about 35 percent faster, the company claims. [full story]

April 2 - 2:25pm EDT   Western Digital on Wednesday introduced its My Book Studio Edition II external dual-drive storage systems. Available with capacities of either 1TB or 2TB, the drives are formatted for Mac computers, but also come with software to make them Windows compatible. Both drives share four interface options, ranging from eSATA and FireWire 800 to FireWire 400 and USB 2.0. Each drive is meant for speed-intensive activities such as video editing, and as such default to a striped RAID 0 configuration; either model can however be configured for a RAID 1 mirrored setup, as necessary. [full story]

March 25 - 9:05am EDT   Hard drive maker Western Digital has announced a new line of external USB drives, the My Passport Elites. The drives weigh less than 5oz, and are in theory small enough to fit in a pocket; they are nevertheless entirely USB powered, and are available in 250 and 320GB capacities. Like some other WD drives an external gauge shows how much space is left, and files are safeguarded using 128-bit encryption. Automatic backup software is included. [full story]

March 19 - 11:15am EDT   Western Digital on Wednesday said it had started shipping its 640GB Caviar SE16. The 3.5-inch desktop drive stores less than the 750GB and 1TB drives that have reached shelves but achieves its 640GB capacity using only two platters. With such sheer density, the drive is both faster than some other drives and also runs at cooler (and thus quieter) levels than disks which would need three or even four platters to push past the 500GB mark, according to the company. [full story]

January 30 - 9:00am EST   Western Digital began Wednesday by introducing a redesigned version of the My Passport Essential external notebook drive. In addition to a new look that is said to recall the company's desktop-minded My Book drives, the Essential is designed to be as simple to setup as possible. Both Macs and PCs can plug the drive into a USB port and have it in use almost immediately. On Windows PCs, both the WD Sync backup and data encryption software as well as a suite of Google tools install automatically the first time the drive is plugged in. Most notebooks can power the drive entirely from the USB port rather than a separate (but still optional) external power cable. [full story]

December 3 - 10:25am EST   Western Digital today raised the threshold for its external notebook drives with the Passport 320GB. Taking advantage of its self-made Scorpio drive, the updated Passport stores its extra content without sacrificing size or weight. The entire piano-black case and drive weigh less than five ounces and is powered solely over the USB bus, the storage maker notes. [full story]