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PRODUCT REVIEW
October 5, 2009

Asus Z8 series motherboards:  How good are they??

 


PRODUCT REVIEW
September 4, 2009

Oyen Digital's EN2 + Seagate Momentus 7200.4 =
A Match Made in Heaven!

 


PRESS RELEASE
August 11, 2009


Hitachi Ships Industry's First 7200 RPM 2TB Enterprise-Class Hard Drives

— New Ultrastar A7K2000 Delivers Massive Capacity, Reliability, 7200 RPM Performance, and Power Efficiency Data Centers Require To Satisfy Growing Storage Needs —

SAN JOSE, Calif., Aug. 11, 2009 – Leveraging its proven, fourth-generation high-capacity hard drive technology, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) today announced that it is now shipping the industry’s first enterprise-class, 7200 RPM 2TB offering, the Ultrastar A7K2000. The new Hitachi GST Ultrastar A7K2000 is designed, manufactured and tested to ensure enterprise-class mean-time-between-failure (MTBF) of 1.2 million hours in demanding 24x7 nearline applications. With a combination of high capacity and reliability, 7200 RPM performance, low power, and enterprise-class features, the Ultrastar A7K2000 drive is the ideal enterprise SATA drive for applications such as data warehousing, disk-to-disk backup, cloud computing and massive scale-out storage implementations where storage density, GB-per-watt and cost-per-GB are critical parameters.

Double the Capacity Density
As enterprises grapple with the unabated growth of digital content, maximizing storage rack-density and floor tile space, while simultaneously reducing energy consumption, are top concerns. In today’s global economy, data centers are pushing the boundaries to make storage more efficient by implementing leading-edge technologies like virtualization, thin provisioning and de-duplication – and they’re increasingly turning to Hitachi GST’s capacity-optimized Ultrastar drives to help accomplish that goal. At 2TB per drive, the A7K2000 has double the capacity of the prior generation A7K1000 drive in the same 3.5-inch form factor.

“Xyratex is pleased to work with Hitachi qualifying the industry’s first enterprise-class, 7,200 RPM 2TB hard disk drive,” said Todd Gresham, senior vice president, Networked Storage Solutions, Xyratex. “We welcome this benchmark product from Hitachi, whose family of Ultrastar drives continues to offer us the capacity, performance, reliability, and low power that our storage and server OEM customers require.”

Industry Leading Reliability
In its fourth generation, the Hitachi Ultrastar A7K2000 drive can be easily integrated into new and existing storage systems, enabling higher capacity density and drawing less power in the same 3.5-inch footprint. Specifically designed for the enterprise, Ultrastar SATA drives feature Hitachi’s patented Rotational Vibration Safeguard (RVS) sensor technology, which optimizes drive performance in multi-drive RAID arrays and rack-mounted systems. Backed by a five-year warranty, the Ultrastar platform has earned Hitachi GST a reputation among server and storage vendors as a global partner dedicated to delivering the highest quality and reliability in the industry.

“Whether you’re a systems integrator, whitebox manufacturer or global OEM, your storage requirements demand flexible and creative solutions. The more you can tailor those solutions to the best balance of capacity, reliability, low power and cost, the more your customer’s can achieve new levels of storage efficiency,” said Brendan Collins, vice president of marketing, Hitachi GST. “With the addition of the A7K2000, Hitachi GST continues to provide one of the broadest ranges of enterprise storage products in the world—from premium, enterprise-class, capacity-optimized SATA drives to performance oriented 10,000 and 15,000 RPM drives—ideal for virtually every aspect of storage in the data center.”

7200 RPM Performance and Reduced Power Consumption
Operating at 7200 RPM, the Hitachi Ultrastar A7K2000 offers better overall performance than slower-RPM, capacity-oriented drives, and does so at impressively low power-consumption rates. When compared to Hitachi’s previous generation Ultrastar A7K1000, the A7K2000 offers a 155 percent improvement in sustained data transfer rates, and a 120 percent improvement in watts-per-GB. With five Advanced Power Management modes, a 36 percent reduction in watts during low RPM idle mode, and using less than 1 watt during standby/sleep modes, the Ultrastar A7K2000 can help data centers achieve lower AC power and HVAC requirements, freeing up precious headroom for growing enterprise needs. The Ultrastar A7K2000 is halogen-free and RoHS compliant.

Data Safety and Security
No IT manager wants their company to become front-page news as another enterprise that has suffered an embarrassing, accidental disclosure of sensitive data, or to be responsible for the associated liabilities involved. For this reason, the Ultrastar A7K2000 is also available with a bulk data encryption (BDE) option. When enabled, the Hitachi BDE implementation encrypts all data on the drive using a private security key as it is written to the disk, and then decrypts it with the key as it is retrieved, giving users an extreme level of data protection. Unlike software-based encryption solutions, Hitachi’s BDE implementation is hardware-based, so it won’t slow the system down. Hitachi’s BDE also speeds up and simplifies the drive re-deployment and decommissioning process. By deleting the encryption key, the data is rendered unreadable, thereby eliminating the need for time-consuming, multi-pattern data overwrite.

Availability
The 2TB Ultrastar A7K2000 is now available worldwide with a five-year warranty. 500GB and 1TB versions of the drive will begin shipping in the current quarter.


MEDIA ALERT
July 22, 2009


New AMD Athlon™ II X2 245 and 240 Processors Designed to Efficiently Handle Today’s Mainstream Computing Needs

— Dual-core processors deliver the right mix of power efficiency and performance at very affordable price points —

What:         AMD (NYSE:AMD) today announced the AMD Athlon™ II X2 dual-core 245 and 240 processors, delivering 45nm technology-based performance to mainstream PC users for less than $67 USD. When combined with AMD’s chipsets, these processors are designed to provide plenty of performance to handle today’s popular mainstream applications in multitasking environments – all while remaining cool and quiet.

Why:          Given the current economic environment, consumers are seeking the best computing value without sacrificing the performance required to maintain their digital lifestyle. With AMD Athlon™ II X2 245 and 240 processors,  system builders and PC OEMs can better address the industry’s need to provide affordable, powerful and energy efficient desktop PCs that help consumers quickly and easily create, enjoy and share their digital world.

Who:          The AMD Athlon™ II X2 245 and 240 processors are geared toward the growing segment of mainstream, value-conscious PC users seeking a full-featured product with advanced performance to enhance their computing capabilities at home and at play. Those looking for an enhanced digital experience and demanding extreme multitasking performance to help them do more in less time will find these processors help exceed their expectations.

Benefits:    AMD Athlon™ II dual-core processors provide consumers the capability to efficiently multitask and easily create, render, transfer and share their multimedia content. When combined with ATI Radeon™ HD graphics technology and AMD chipsets, systems based on the AMD Athlon™ II X2 245 and 240 processors deliver a vivid visual experience, smooth multitasking and exceptional digital media performance with efficiency.

Resources

·         Follow all news from the AMD Desktop team on Twitter at @AMDDesktop

·         Read more from AMD bloggers about AMD at Home

·         Check out what they have to say about AMD at Play

·         For processor pricing, see here.

·         Product images can be found at the AMD Unprocessed Flickr page

© 2009 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.  All rights reserved.  AMD, the AMD Arrow logo, ATI, the ATI logo, AMD Athlon, Radeon, and combinations thereof are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Other names are for informational purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective owners. 


PRESS RELEASE
July 20, 2009


 

Lexar Media Announces Next Generation Crucial Solid-State Drive Products

New M225 Solid-State Drive Series Boasts Read Speeds up to 250MB/sec and Write Speeds up to 200MB/sec

Crucial M225 Solid-State Drive (SSD) Key Messages:

  • Fastest, highest capacity Crucial SSDs to date
  • Available in capacities of 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB
  • Featuring an industry standard 2.5-inch form factor, and a SATA 2.0 (3Gb/s) interface
  • Excellent alternative to the traditional hard drive — quieter, cooler, and more durable
  • Fully compatible with the Crucial SK01 External Drive Storage kit

Multimedia Elements:

Fremont, CA, and Glasgow, UK, July 20, 2009 — Lexar Media, a leading global provider of memory products for digital media, today announced its revved-up line of Crucial solid-state drive (SSD) products — the fastest, highest capacity Crucial SSDs to date. The most dramatic change in this new generation of Crucial SSDs is the blazing-fast read and write speeds. The flagship 256GB Crucial M225 SSD screams at an impressive 250MB/sec read speed and a 200MB/sec write speed. The new Crucial SSDs enhance system performance by improving operating system boot and application load times. They also utilize a SATA 2.0 (3Gb/s) interface and feature MLC NAND flash components housed in an industry standard 2.5-inch drive enclosure, making a Crucial M225 SSD easy to install.

"By upgrading their system with a solid-state drive, mobile computer users will enjoy a faster, more rugged system with storage built for mobility. The fact that SSDs don't have any moving parts makes Crucial solid-state drives quieter, cooler, and more durable than traditional hard drives," said Robert Wheadon, Lexar Media's senior worldwide product marketing manager.

The benefits of an SSD aren't limited to notebooks; the Crucial SK01 External Drive Storage Kit (sold separately) is compatible with all three Crucial M225 solid-state drive products. This innovative device delivers the benefits of SSD technology to a user's desktop, or as a portable storage device via a USB port. The kit includes a 2.5-inch USB 2.0 external enclosure, a 3.5-inch SATA 3Gb/s hot-swappable drive bay, and a 5.25-inch drive bay bracket. The Crucial SK01 kit comes with a five year limited warranty.

Visit www.crucial.com/ssd, www.crucial.com/uk/ssd, or www.crucial.com/eu/ssd to take advantage of free online tools, such as the Crucial SSD Advisor tool, which allows customers to find a compatible SSD simply by choosing their system make and model from a drop-down menu. Additionally, an online flash-based installation guide demonstrates how easy it is to install a Crucial M225 SSD.

Crucial SSDs are available in 64GB (currently $169.99), 128GB (currently $329.99), and 256GB (currently $599.99) capacities online atwww.crucial.com/ssd, www.crucial.com/uk/ssd, or www.crucial.com/eu/ssd, and through select channel partners. The new Crucial SSDs also feature a five year limited warranty.

Follow Crucial online!
Twitter: www.twitter.com/crucialmemory
YouTube™ www.youtube.com/crucialmemory
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/business/dashboard/#/pages/Crucial-Memory/74093261135

About Lexar Media
Lexar Media is a leading designer, manufacturer, and marketer of NAND flash and DRAM memory products under the Lexar® and Crucial® brand names. Lexar offers products in all major flash and DRAM memory categories, including consumer and enterprise-level USB flash drives, industry-leading memory cards for photography, and all popular form factors of memory cards for mobile devices. For computers, Lexar also offers a full range of DRAM computer memory upgrades for PCs and Mac® systems, and solid state drives (SSDs). An industry leader in innovative, patented flash memory technology, Lexar is vertically integrated with Micron Technology, Inc., one of the largest semiconductor manufacturers worldwide.

For more information about Lexar, visit www.lexar.com. For more information about Crucial products, visit www.crucial.com, www.crucial.com/uk or www.crucial.com/eu. Lexar Media, Inc. is a subsidiary of Micron Technology, Inc. Lexar Media is a division of Micron Europe Limited, a division of Micron Semiconductor Asia Pte. Ltd., and a division of Micron Japan, Ltd.

Lexar. When Memory Matters.™

About Micron
Micron Technology, Inc., is one of the world's leading providers of advanced semiconductor solutions. Through its worldwide operations, Micron manufactures and markets DRAM, NAND flash memory, CMOS image sensors, other semiconductor components, and memory modules for use in leading-edge computing, consumer, networking, and mobile products. Micron's common stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the MU symbol. To learn more about Micron Technology, Inc., visit www.micron.com.

©2009 Lexar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Information is subject to change without notice. Lexar, the Lexar logo, and When Memory Matters are trademarks of Lexar Media, Inc. Micron, Crucial, and the Crucial logo are trademarks of Micron Technology, Inc. All other brand or product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.

US Contact:
Kelly Sasso
Lexar Media
+1 208-363-5654
ksasso@micron.com
http://www.crucial.com

UK Contact:
Joan Lunny
Lexar Media
+44 (0) 1355 586130
crucialeupr@micron.com
http://www.crucial.com/uk

PRESS RELEASE
July 13, 2009


 

Seagate Releases World's Fastest, Highest Capacity and Most Efficient Cheetah Enterprise Drives Into the Channel

Leading distributors and system builders are ready for 3.5-inch mission-critical hard drive designed for long-term business sustainability and reduced TCO

SCOTTS VALLEY, Calif., July 13 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Seagate (NASDAQ: STX) today announced it is now shipping its technology-leading Cheetah(R) 15K.7 enterprise-class hard drives into the worldwide distribution channel. As the highest performing, highest capacity 3.5-inch mission-critical hard drive with best-in-class reliability for Tier 1 environments, the Cheetah 15K.7 drive is ideal for a wide range of server and storage applications. With the Cheetah 15K.7 hard drive, Seagate's technology leadership moves firmly past the competition as it delivers the industry's first 15K-rpm drive to reach the 600GB capacity point while providing record reliability of 1.6 million hours MTBF.

The Cheetah 15K.7 drive is available with the latest 6Gb/s SAS or 4Gb/s FC interfaces, and includes Seagate PowerTrim(TM) technology, which dynamically reduces power consumption. Together, these features enable system builders to deliver lower-cost, multi-drive servers and storage systems, making the Cheetah 15K.7 ideal for use in environments ranging from small and medium-sized businesses to the largest enterprises.

"Bell Micro's customers continue to require added capacity and performance for their server and storage systems, but many also must focus on finding ways to lower a system's total cost of ownership (TCO) or easily integrate new solutions using existing platforms," said Joe Cousins, vice president of Marketing at Bell Microproducts. "We're pleased to now offer the Seagate(R) Cheetah(R) 15K.7 family of drives that fill these critical needs. For users looking for the most advanced technology to create new premium systems, or those who are looking to extend the life of their existing systems, the Cheetah(R) 15K.7 delivers the low TCO and promise of easy integration for businesses of all sizes."

Cheetah hard drives are the standard for existing enterprise systems. Cheetah drives are aimed directly at enabling businesses to sensibly grow and scale as their information needs continue, while at the same time providing the reliability required to avoid costly interruption or downtime.

For more information about the Cheetah 15K.7 drive, visit Seagate's Cheetah product page at http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/servers/.


PRODUCT REVIEW
July 11, 2009


Supermicro X8DA3 + 2x Quad-Core Intel Xeon W5580 + 12GB Crucial DDR3 = FASTEST EVER?

 
Supermicro X8DA3


Intel Xeon W5580


PRESS RELEASE
July 7, 2009

LSI 3ware SATA RAID Controllers Add Support for Intel Solid State Drives

LSI controller cards enhance performance of solid state drives in tiered storage networks and ease integration with existing hard drives




MILPITAS, Calif., July 7, 2009 – LSI Corporation (NYSE: LSI) today announced the release of new controller firmware for its 3ware® 9650SE SATA RAID controller cards which provides support for Intel® X25-E Extreme SATA Solid State Drives (SSDs). The firmware upgrade is designed to provide full compliance with the Intel SSDs for servers, storage and high-end workstations.
 
Intel X25-E Extreme SSDs are based on single-level cell (SLC) NAND flash technology to offer fast read and write times as well as high reliability. The LSI™ 3ware 9650SE PCI Express to SATA RAID controllers complement the Intel drives with high-performance and high-reliability hardware RAID protection.
 
“LSI controller cards play a pivotal role in maximizing solid state drive performance and protecting existing investments in hard disk drives,” said Brent Blanchard, director of Worldwide Channel Sales and Marketing, LSI. “Multiple drive types can be supported by a single 3ware controller while maintaining performance, which makes it easier and more cost effective to incorporate SSDs into existing enterprise SAS and SATA system environments.”
 
LSI offers a broad portfolio of 3ware RAID controllers, including a full line of low-profile SAS/SATA cards and a complete family of SATA cards with 2 to 24 ports. The 3ware RAID management interface and software suite provide users with a simplified configuration experience regardless of storage interface.
 
The LSI 3ware 9650SE SATA controllers are available in a variety of port configurations through the LSI worldwide network of distributors, integrators and VARs. New and existing customers may upgrade to the LSI 3ware 9.5.2 firmware for free at www.3ware.com/support/download.asp. More information is available at the LSI Channel Gateway (www.lsichannelgateway.com).

About LSI
LSI Corporation (NYSE: LSI) is a leading provider of innovative silicon, systems and software technologies that enable products which seamlessly bring people, information and digital content together. The company offers a broad portfolio of capabilities and services including custom and standard product ICs, controller cards, systems and software that are trusted by the world's best known brands to power leading solutions in the Storage and Networking markets. More information is available at www.lsi.com.

###

CLICK HERE FOR OUR REVIEW OF THE LSI 3WARE RAID CONTROLLERS


PRODUCT REVIEWS
May 6, 2009

It's here.  The long-awaited Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition.  3.2GHz of pure goodness!


We also look at the Asus M4A79T Deluxe.  Best AM3 board?  Maybe...


PRODUCT REVIEWS
May 5, 2009

SUPER SPRING 2009 HDD EXTRAVAGANZA!

Seagate Savvio 15K.2 147GB SAS

Seagate Savvio 10K.3 300GB SAS

Seagate Constellation 500GB SATA

Hitachi Travelstar 5K500.B SATA

Hitachi Deskstar E7K1000 SATA

Western Digital Green Power WD20EADS 2TB SATA

Western Digital Velociraptor 300GB SATA


PRODUCT REVIEW
April 30, 2009

COOLIT SYSTEMS DOMINO ALC
Easy and effective watercooling?


PRODUCT REVIEW
April 21, 2009

TWO NEW MUST-HAVES FOR THE MOBILE WARRIOR!
Samsung's SE-S084B DVD burner and the Wilson Electronics MobilePro Amplifier kit!


PRODUCT REVIEW
March 17, 2009

Samsung S1 - 120GB portable bus-powered USB 2.0 HDD
Beautifully small, but how does it perform?


HOW-TO ARTICLE
March 1, 2009
 

Does your RPTV have broken deflection ICs (STK392-110)?
Here's how we repaired a Toshiba 53HX71!



PRODUCT REVIEW
February 4, 2009

Logitech and Skype team up to give us FREE high-quality Video conferencing! 
Are the webcams worth it?  Click here to find out!


PRESS RELEASE
February 3, 2009

SEAGATE® INTRODUCES CONSTELLATION™: ALL-STAR ENTERPRISE HARD DRIVES WITH THE WORLD’S HIGHEST CAPACITY AND POWER EFFICIENCY

The Constellation family includes 2.5-inch nearline hard drive with lowest enterprise power consumption and record-setting 3.5-inch 7200-rpm 2TB hard drive for nearline Tier 2 enterprise applications

SCOTTS VALLEY, Calif. — February 2, 2009 — Seagate (NASDAQ:STX) today introduced its Constellation™ family of new enterprise storage solutions for Tier 2 nearline storage applications. The two new drive models, the 2.5-inch Constellation and the 3.5-inch Constellation ES hard drives, include a combination of features that enable high capacities, increased power efficiency, enterprise-class reliability, and data security. Both drives also include PowerChoice™ from Seagate, which decreases power consumption by up to 54% for record power savings in enterprise environments.

“The need for greater storage capacity will continue to expand in multiple directions and dimensions, but there will be an increasing scrutiny of all storage system purchases, with an eye to decreasing power consumption, footprint, and cost per GB in unprecedented ways,” said John Monroe, a research vice president at Gartner. “Performance will not be ignored, but a flexible balance of capacity, cost per GB, power and speed will become more crucial in fulfilling end-user storage demands at varied price points.”

Constellation
The Constellation 2.5-inch hard drive is offered in capacities of 160GB and 500GB with both 3 Gbps SATA and new SAS 2.0 interface running at 6Gb/s speeds. As the first SAS 2.0 nearline drive, the Constellation hard drive enables larger external storage topologies, 100% faster data throughput and higher signal strength over greater distances – dramatically increasing storage scalability. The Constellation family will begin shipping this quarter.

“Dell recognizes that increased capacity and high-reliability are key to enabling further adoption of small form factor storage within the enterprise. With new capacities, small form factor drives afford customers performance and power gains within the same rack space,” said Praveen Asthana, director of Dell Storage.
“As an industry-leader in storage, Dell is pleased to partner with Seagate and be one of the first companies to offer the Constellation family of drives to our customers.”

Constellation ES
The 3.5-inch Constellation ES hard drive will be available in 500GB, 1TB and 2TB capacities, and with an enterprise-class SAS interface as well as a SATA version, and provides best-in-class capacity and performance. As the world’s only 7200-rpm 3.5-inch hard drive providing up to 2TB of storage, the record-setting capacity of Constellation ES hard drives are ideal for 3.5-inch based external storage architectures. With Constellation ES hard drives, customers don’t have to sacrifice performance in order to gain the highest capacities. The Constellation ES hard drive will ship in calendar Q3.

“Xyratex continues to work closely with Seagate to advance storage system innovation to meet both the performance and capacity-based market requirements,” said Todd Gresham, executive vice president and general manager of the Networked Storage Solutions Division for Xyratex. The new Constellation family of products compliments Xyratex’s philosophy of delivering cost-effective enterprise-class, energy efficient storage solutions that help provide our customers the long-term investment protection they demand.”

With Seagate’s innovative PowerChoice technology, both Constellation hard drive models deliver the highest power-reduction savings ever offered in an enterprise-class HDD, and provide flexible, user-manageable options to deliver power savings without sacrificing performance, data integrity, or reliability. In addition, the Constellation family of drives are backed with field-proven, enterprise-grade reliability and rated at a full 1.2 million hours MTBF.

Delivering on Seagate’s commitment to add security features throughout its product portfolio, the Constellation family of drives are offered with optional self-encrypting drive (SED) technology and provide government-grade data security through the drive’s life cycle. SED technology makes drive retirement and disposal easy by eliminating the need for the numerous manual processes involved which are often incomplete, complex, expensive, or prone to error. For critical information that must remain secure, and because all systems are eventually retired, whether being relocated, re-purposed, or disposed of, the information on a Constellation SED hard drive remains AES-safe.

Seagate Unified Storage™ architecture delivers long-term business sustainability
Historically, the variety of drive interfaces, form factors and now, security solutions, can add complexity and increase costs for both IT professionals and OEMs. Making the wrong choice today creates storage
islands in the data center with no easy path for upgrades – further complicating an already complex environment. The Seagate Unified Storage architecture converges best-of-breed technologies (Serial
Attached SCSI, Small Form Factor and Self-Encrypting Drives) into a foundation for powerful yet simple storage that boosts business and operational efficiency while reducing cost and complexity.

The Seagate Unified Storage architecture delivers a storage foundation for companies that are proactively ensuring the long-term sustainability of their business through best-in-class IT practices. Companies will avoid the risk of impacting their own product quality, competitiveness, or profitability when their storage system infrastructure and data center footprint is optimized across power, cooling and performance density. Because the role of small form factor drives are important to the long-term efficiency and sustainability of any data center enterprise, Seagate will be extending this component into all tiers of its Unified Storage architecture in the future.

“With tightening IT budgets, Seagate is committed to delivering enterprise-class nearline storage solutions that ensure business sustainability by optimizing resources, reducing environment, energy or social impact and satisfying customer requirements without compromising performance,” said Sherman Black, senior vice president, Seagate Core Marketing and Strategy. “These new Constellation HDDs provide business continuity in the data center by offering the highest capacities, the lowest power, and the latest in enterprise-class data integrity with SAS 2.0 and AES government-grade encryption.”

For more information about the Constellation family of drives, in addition to Seagate’s other enterprise storage solutions, visit www.seagate.com.

About Seagate
Seagate is the worldwide leader in the design, manufacture and marketing of hard disk drives and storage solutions, providing products for a wide-range of applications, including Enterprise, Desktop, Mobile Computing, Consumer Electronics and Branded Solutions. Seagate’s business model leverages technology leadership and world-class manufacturing to deliver industry-leading innovation and quality to its global customers, with the goal of being the time-to-market leader in all markets in which it participates. The company is committed to providing award-winning products, customer support and reliability to meet the world’s growing demand for information storage. Seagate can be found around the globe and at http://www.seagate.com.
 

Seagate, Seagate Technology and the Wave logo are registered trademarks of Seagate Technology LLC in the United States and/or other countries. Constellation, PowerChoice and Unified Storage are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Seagate Technology LLC or one of its affiliated companies in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks or registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners. When referring to hard drive capacity, one gigabyte, or GB, equals one billion bytes and one terabyte, or TB, equals one trillion bytes. Your computer’s operating system may use a different standard of measurement and report a lower capacity. In addition, some of the listed capacity is used for formatting and other functions, and thus will not be available for data storage. Seagate reserves the right to change, without notice, product offerings or specifications.

# # #


PRESS RELEASE
February 3, 2009

WD® LAUNCHES INDUSTRY'S FIRST 2 TB HARD DRIVES WD's Eco-friendly, Cool and Quiet, WD Caviar® Green™ Drive Marks the Largest Capacity Hard Drive in the Industry

LAKE FOREST, Calif. - Jan. 27, 2009 - 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® Caviar® Green™ 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™ 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®/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™, which secures the motor shaft at both ends to reduce system-induced vibration and stabilize platters for accurate tracking during read and write operations1; IntelliPower™, which fine-tunes the balance of spin speed, transfer rate and caching algorithms designed to deliver both significant power savings and solid performance; IntelliSeek™, which calculates optimum seek speeds to lower power consumption, noise, and vibration; and NoTouch™ 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® 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.

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

###

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.

 


REVIEWS
December 31, 2008

Inexpensive, easy, and fun: Playstation 2 Mods without soldering!


 


REVIEWS
December 30, 2008

GOODBYE 2008!

For 2008, we've put together our choices for a Home Server and HTPC hardware!

Quiet, fast, HD recording and playback, digital cable-box capture over 1394, network QAM tuners, and 21 HDDs!


REVIEWS
December 16, 2008

OUR MOBILE WARRIOR HOLIDAY SHOPPING GUIDE IS COMPLETE!

Check out our picks for the ultimate in mobile computing experience!


REVIEWS
December 11, 2008

Could this be the 500GB 2.5" drive to dominate all 500GB 2.5" drives?

Find out and read our WD Scorpio Blue 500GB (WD5000BEVT) Review!


REVIEWS
November 11, 2008

 

5x SUPER 2.5" HARD DRIVE ROUNDUP!

Hitachi's 7K200, 7K320, and 5K500 compete with
Samsung's slender HM500LI and WD's HOT Scorpio Black 320GB!!!
 

 

 


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