July 3 - 9:20am EDT   Demand for notebook hard drives should lead to a shortage of disks throughout much of the summer, integrated circuit producers GMI Technology and Weikeng Industrial warned on Friday. As sales agents for hard drives from Hitachi, Toshiba and Western Digital, they tell DigiTimes that their clients hadn't anticipated demand and didn't adjust until it was too late. Hitachi and Western Digital were fiscally conservative due to the economy and didn't expand until early spring, while Toshiba is simply seeing very high demand for a single-platter 250GB drive. [full story]

June 24 - 10:40am EDT   WD on Wednesday announced the launch of its redesigned My Book World Edition II dual-drive network storage system (NAS). Available in 2TB and 4TB capacities, the dual-drive systems ship set up in a mirrored (RAID 1) drive array, backing up data simultaneously to both drives, making it safe in case one fails. WD also includes backup software meant to make scheduling automatic data backup easier for inexperienced Windows PC users. [full story]

June 22 - 11:15am EDT   Western Digital has already tipped its hand as to a capacity boost for its Caviar Black line with promo material from Japan. Local retailer SofMap has been given personal cleaning kits that indicate a 2TB Caviar Black is due in the near future and would be the first mainstream hard drive to come with 64MB of cache to speed up disk access. To date, the performance-oriented models have been limited to 1TB of space and 32MB of cache; Western Digital already offers a 2TB Caviar Green but, until now, hasn't had the option of a full-speed drive. [full story]

June 16 - 10:40am EDT   Western Digital this morning entered into the solid-state drive field in earnest and launched its SiliconDrive III range. The result of its buyout of SiliconSystems earlier this year, the drives are targeted at professionals where longevity is more important than sheer speed. Although they don't have read and write speeds faster than 100MB and 80MB per second respectively, they have a unique predictive feature that calculates the remaining lifespan of a drive so that it can be replaced before it fails. [full story]

June 9 - 8:50am EDT   Western Digital on Tuesday launched one of its largest home drives with an upgrade to the My Book Studio Edition II: the new model pairs two 2TB drives together in a RAID 0 stripe for a total of 4TB of space, affording it enough room for very large backups or other media. As before, it comes pre-formatted in HFS+ for Macs and is seen as particularly useful for large Time Machine backups. [full story]

March 30 - 11:10am EDT   Western Digital this morning grabbed an edge against rival Seagate by acquiring flash storage maker SiliconSystems for $65 million. The deal takes effect almost immediately and will set the new division towards producing solid-state drives (SSDs) for its parent. No immediate product plans have been announced, but SiliconSystems currently makes SSDs for notebook-friendly 2.5-inch sizes and smaller, including 1.8-inch and memory card-sized drives. [full story]

March 26 - 2:55pm EDT   Maingear on Thursday hoped to add a unique feature to small-but-fast notebooks by launching the mX-L. The 13.3-inch platform is rare among factory-built notebooks in its option for a custom laser engraving on the back that personalizes its look. The system is also still rare for its size in having the choice of up to a 2.93GHz Core 2 Duo for its processor and storage that scales up to either Intel's 160GB X25-M solid-state drive or a traditional 500GB Western Digital rotating disk. Custom orders can similarly outfit it with up to 8GB of RAM. [full story]

March 25 - 4:45pm EDT   Western Digital today gave all of its single-disk My Book external hard drives new 2TB capacity levels. The upgrade is equivalent to about 241 hours of full-bitrate HD and is particularly described as useful for Mac users or frequent shoppers from iTunes. At least 250 million TV shows have been bought, according to data from Apple, while over 33 million movies have either been rented or bought outright. [full story]

March 3 - 10:25pm EST   Western Digital has announced an upgrade to its WD ShareSpace four-bay storage system, resulting in an increased storage capacity from 4TB up to 8TB. The enhanced storage is made possible by incorporating 2TB Cavier Green drives. In addition to the larger capacity, the new version is also designed to improve the system’s read and write speeds by up to 30 percent for large media files, and includes a DLNA certified media server to help with streaming music, photos, and videos to popular DLNA-certified devices such as the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. [full story]

February 26 - 5:30pm EST   Other World Computing has released a number of new Voyager hard-drive docking bundles, with storage capacities up to 2.0TB and dual-interface or quad-interface options. The external Voyager S2 features USB 2.0 and eSATA connection options, with support for both Windows and Mac systems. Customers can choose between a 500GB or 1.0TB Hitachi Deskstar drive, 1.5TB Seagate Barracuda drive, or a 2.0TB Western Digital Caviar Green drive. [full story]

February 18 - 10:20am EST   Western Digital on Wednesday introduced new My Book World Edition network storage drives in 1TB and new 2TB capacities that can automatically back up the files on multiple network-connected PCs and/or Macs. The drives have can be quickly setup by plugging them into a network router and setting them up to back up files via a relatively straightforward interface. Any changes to selected files on the connected and synced computers is then automatically saved at user-set intervals. [full story]

February 10 - 4:20pm EST   Today's deals at DealNN include a variety of deals on electronics from iPods to external hard drives. Most notable today is the Western Digital My Passport Studio external hard drive. This hard drive is pre-formatted for Mac users and offers FireWire, and USB interface options. It is currently priced at $99.99, which is a price reduction of $55 off the original price of $154.99, and includes FREE shipping after mail in rebate from MacMall. [full story]

January 27 - 8:50am EST   As promised, Western Digital today launched the Caviar Green 2TB, the world's first desktop hard drive to cross the 2TB milestone. The 3.5-inch SATA drive takes advantage of the 500GB per platter technology behind its 1.5TB drive to reach the record capacity but uses intelligent seek patterns and on-the-fly changes to spin speed, reducing the amount of power used in certain loading situations or in low demand. [full story]

January 14 - 3:25pm EST   Toshiba on Wednesday revealed (reg. required) that talks are currently underway to investigate buying Fujitsu's hard drive business in a deal estimated to be worth roughly $448.8 million. No details have been revealed, but Fujitsu itself has acknowledged the talks and says that Toshiba is one of "several" candidates for a possible deal, which in the past have also included Western Digital. [full story]

January 13 - 3:35pm EST   Western Digital is on the verge of launching a record-setting hard drive, according to a tip sent to Fudzilla. Corroborated by a store listing, the leak hints at a Caviar Green model, the WD20EADS, that should top 2TB using and double the capacity of the drive maker's current line. The Green label will be earned through a power-efficient design that winds down to 5,400RPM from the normal 7,200RPM under lower demand. [full story]