2024-11-03

western digital

WD Creates the World’s Thinnest 2.5” Hybrid Hard Drive

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM05 mins

Sept. 10, 2012 – Western Digital Corp. today announced it is sampling a 5mm-thin hard disk drive(New 5 mm Standard Slashes Storage Footprint by Almost 50% Compared to Traditional 2.5-inch Hard Drives) featuring hybrid technology. Western Digital has developed hard drives slim enough for integration into today’s thinnest notebook PCs, which provide high-capacity storage and robustness while featuring instant-on and application performance similar to today’s client solid state drives (SSDs). The new technologies will be showcased during WD’s Investor Day, Sept. 13, 2012.

     “Mobile devices are becoming smaller, thinner, lighter and more responsive, working with our technology partners, WD has developed new 5 mm hard drives that enable high capacity storage along with excellent performance and superior economics to allow our customers to expand their thin offerings.”- said Matt Rutledge, vice president of client storage solutions at WD.

With device volumetric efficiency a key concern for system makers, WD began shipping 7 mm height hard drives for thin-profile notebooks earlier this year (historically, standard notebook hard drives have been 9.5 mm). WD 5 mm hybrid hard drives will enable the market’s thinnest computers to offer 500 GB of capacity, utilizing almost 50% less volume compared to current 9.5 mm hard drives and at one tenth the cost of similar capacity SSDs.

“Acer is partnering with WD to bring advanced notebook performance and capacity in the smallest form factor, It’s a part of our ongoing commitment to present leading technology that ultimately improves the total user experience of our customers.”- said David Lee, associate vice president of Mobile Computing Product business unit at Acer.

“We are seeing a shift in the computing world to more powerful mobile computing solutions,  notebook business unit. with this in mind, ASUS and WD are collaborating to create slimmer and more mobile notebook solutions — without sacrificing capacity or performance — to deliver smaller form-factor to consumers.” – said SY Shain, senior vice president of ASUS’

Hybrid Technology and Client Tiered Storage

WD’s innovative hybrid technology pairs MLC NAND flash storage for fast SSD-like data throughput and instant-on responsiveness with magnetic disks for efficient, high-capacity storage. Similar to the practice of multi-million dollar enterprise systems, WD’s hybrid technology utilizes the concept of tiered storage. Data accessed most frequently (often referred to as ‘hot’ data) is managed using speedy NAND flash to ensure fast response times, while data accessed less often (‘cold’ data) resides on the robust magnetic disks. The tiered design of hybrid hard drives, compared to current dual-drive solutions, also provides a redundancy benefit for users. The magnetic disk backs up all files residing in the NAND, protecting the user from inevitable NAND wear and preserving it for the more hot data handling. WD’s hybrid technology works in conjunction with the PC operating system to deliver higher performance than current hybrid offerings while minimizing NAND wear to allow the use of less expensive MLC NAND.

Hybrid hard drives combine NAND flash and magnetic disks, simplifying storage-element integration for OEM customers and providing a host of end user benefits: superior performance, responsiveness, lower power consumption, greater operating shock tolerance, and data protection. And unlike dual-drive designs, WD’s hybrid technology provides single-unit design homogeneity that OEM system manufacturers have long sought from the storage industry.

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Fiscal Fourth Quarter and Year-End 2011 Financial Results

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM08 mins

Seagate Technology
seagateDemand for disk drive storage continues to grow as quarterly shipments reach a record 52 million units and fiscal year shipments increase to a record 199 million units.

Seagate Technology reported financial results for the quarter ended July 1, 2011. Seagate shipped 52 million hard disk drives and reported revenue of $2.9 billion, gross margin of 19.3%, net income of $119 million and diluted earnings per share of $0.27. On a non-GAAP basis, which excludes the net impact of restructuring, write-down of an equity investment, gain on the sale of one of its facilities, and expenses related to the previously announced transaction with Samsung, Seagate reported net income of $126 million and diluted earnings per share of $0.28 for the quarter ended July 1, 2011.

For the fiscal year ended July 1, 2011, the company reported revenue of $11.0 billion, gross margin of 19.6%, net income of $511 million and diluted earnings per share of $1.09. On a non-GAAP basis, which excludes the net impact of loss on redemption of debt, purchased intangibles amortization, restructuring, write-down of an equity investment, gain on the sale of one of its facilities, expenses related to the previously announced transaction with Samsung and tax adjustments related to prior fiscal years, Seagate reported net income of $578 million and diluted earnings per share of $1.24. Additionally, Seagate returned $77 million to shareholders in the form of a dividend and repurchased $822 million of Seagate ordinary shares.

“Seagate and the industry are benefitting from the significant demand for storage related to new applications and architectures associated with mobile and connected devices, Because hard disk drive storage is a fundamental technology for cloud service providers, data centers and all other network-based content providers, total industry demand grew almost 40% in fiscal year 2011 to 330 million terabytes. For the June quarter, Seagate’s average capacity per drive shipped grew to approximately 590 GB an increase of 39% year-over-year. As more online content and services become available to billions of connected mobile devices, we expect demand for storage capacity to continue to grow and Seagate to benefit from this growth.” said Steve Luczo, Seagate chairman, president and CEO.

Related Link: Seagate Q4 FY2011 Financial Statements

Western Digital Corp
wdQ4 REVENUE OF $2.4 BILLION AND NET INCOME OF $158 MILLION, OR $0.67 PER SHARE

For the quarter, revenue totaled $2.4 billion, net income was $158 million, or $0.67 per share, and hard-drive unit shipments were 54 million. The quarterly results included total expenses of $35 million associated with the planned acquisition of Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) announced Mar. 7, 2011, and for unrelated litigation accruals. Excluding these expenses, non-GAAP net income was $193 million or $0.81 per share.1

In the year-ago quarter, the company reported revenue of $2.38 billion, net income of $265 million, or $1.13 per share, and shipped 50 million hard drives. The 2010 results included $27 million of expenses related to litigation accruals. Excluding these expenses, the year-ago quarter non-GAAP net income was $292 million, or $1.24 per share.2

The company generated $447 million in cash from operations during the June quarter, ending with total cash and cash equivalents of $3.5 billion.

For fiscal year 2011, the company posted revenue of $9.53 billion and net income of $726 million, or $3.09 per share, compared to fiscal 2010 revenue of $9.85 billion and net income of $1.38 billion, or $5.93 per share. The 2011 net income included total expenses of $44 million associated with the planned acquisition of Hitachi GST and unrelated litigation accruals. Excluding these expenses, fiscal 2011 non-GAAP net income was $770 million or $3.28 per share.1 The 2010 net income included $27 million of expenses related to litigation accruals. Excluding these expenses, fiscal 2010 non-GAAP net income was $1.41 billion, or $6.05 per share.2

“In the June quarter, we were able to meet stronger than anticipated demand, especially from our OEM customers, We believe the stronger demand was driven by increased use of sea freight in advance of the second half of the calendar year as well as supply continuity concerns in the aftermath of the Japan earthquake.

In a challenging HDD market environment in fiscal 2011, the industry saw unit volume growth of four percent while WD achieved growth of six percent as customers demonstrated a continued preference for the WD value proposition.

We remain focused on completing our strategic acquisition of Hitachi GST. We are continuing to engage in the approval process with all the appropriate regulatory agencies and thus far we have received clearance from Brazil, Taiwan and Turkey. We continue to work closely with the remaining agencies which are reviewing our transaction. As previously announced, we now expect that the transaction will close in the fourth calendar quarter of 2011, and our integration planning activities continue on schedule.” – said John Coyne, president and chief executive officer.

Related Link: Western Digital Fourth Quarter Fiscal 2011 Investor Information Summary

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WD Will Offer a New Storage Solution for Small Business Owners

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM03 mins

Storage SolutionWestern Digital announced it will be offering a small-office storage server product and has signed an OEM software agreement with Microsoft Corporation to include the Windows® Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials operating system software. WD® will combine its leading storage technologies with Microsoft’s operating system to deliver a complete storage solution for the small business market. The result will be a product that simplifies connection, protection and collaboration online for small businesses and the information technology services organizations that support them.

Fast, dependable and secure access to data, along with complete backup and recovery capability are becoming as crucial for small-to-medium-sized businesses (SMBs) as it is for large enterprises. According to Forrester Research, SMBs will outpace the projected IT market growth rate of 7.1%. In terms of infrastructure spending increases, storage and servers top SMBs’ hardware budget plans. Fifty-three percent of SMBs indicate that they will increase their storage spend.1 To serve this market, WD joined with Microsoft to incorporate the most advanced online features so businesses can easily and securely share information with clients, consultants or satellite offices located anywhere in the world.

“Small businesses will find great value in the combination of WD’s hardware solutions and the recently released Microsoft Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials solution from Microsoft. I am excited about the opportunity we have with WD and their solutions for helping small businesses run more efficiently,” said Nick Parker, VP of Worldwide Marketing for the OEM Division at Microsoft.

“By combining Microsoft’s platform with WD’s strength in the storage market, the two organizations bring extraordinary synergies that boost productivity and efficiency for small business. With this, WD will offer storage solutions for small business that provides centralized, online shared storage capable of meeting the storage requirements of the small business owners in today’s fast paced business environment,” said Thomas Gallivan, WD’s vice president of marketing for SMB branded products.

To receive future sales and product information regarding WD’s upcoming SMB products, you can email smbstorage@wdc.com.

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WD External Drive Is No Longer Recognized In Windows Or Mac?

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM08 mins

How can I tell if my WD external drive is still functional even though it is not recognized in Windows or Mac?

Please note: This answer is highly recommended prior to returning the drive for a replacement.

Some of the simple troubleshooting techniques used below can be applied to external hard drives on a Mac as well as a PC.

Problem:
I was using my external hard drive for some time and now a drive letter (icon) does not appear in My Computer (Mac Desktop) and I cannot access the data on that drive.

Cause:
there could be a few reasons why the drive is not showing up in My Computer (Mac Desktop). The drive itself could have failed, the partition on the drive may be damaged, the data cable may no longer be good, or the drive may no longer be getting enough power to fully spin up.

Solution:
It’s always best to start with the most simple possible causes when troubleshooting. Follow the steps below in order to eliminate the common simple issues:

  1. If the drive is not being recognized, disconnect the power adapter from the surge protector/UPS and plug directly into the wall. Sometimes, surge protectors diminish the power being supplied as more devices are added to them.Note: If after doing this the drive does not spin up at all (you can tell by feeling for vibration on the drive), then either the drive or the power adapter has failed. You will need to replace the power adapter to proceed with the troubleshooting. If after replacing the power adapter, the drive still doesn’t spin up, then you will need to replace the drive. You will find links for data recovery and warranty replacement down below.
  2. If the drive is spinning but not recognized in My Computer (Mac Desktop), then change out the data cable with one that you know is good. Cables get old and the wires inside can break, or pull loose from the connectors.
  3. If that doesn’t work, connect the external drive to another USB port. The USB port could be malfunctioning.
  4. If your drive still isn’t being recognized, turn your PC (Mac) off, disconnect the data cable, restart the computer, and once the operating system is fully up and running, reconnect the data cable. Give it a minute or two to recognize then you will want to access Disk Management (Disk Utility) to see if the drive shows up in there. If it does show up in Disk Management (Disk Utility), then you have a corrupted or damaged partition and will need to re-partition and reformat the drive for it to be recognized on your PC (Mac). See Links and note below.

    Important: If you have data on the drive that you need, do not reformat the drive. You will need to perform data recovery on the drive, before you can proceed with reformatting the drive. With a damaged partition, there is data recovery software that may restore the data. You can research the various kinds on the internet.

  5. If the drive doesn’t show up in Disk Management (Disk Utility), then the last option you have is to connect the drive to another PC. If it works, then there’s an issue with either the hardware or drivers on the primary PC. You will then have to troubleshoot that computer and operating system. For help with the operating system, you will need to contact either Microsoft Support, or if you have a Mac then Apple. For help with the computer hardware, you will need to contact the computer manufacturer.
  6. If the external drive does not show up on another PC, then the drive has failed. You will need to go to data recovery if you need the data on the drive. If the drive is under warranty, you can then replace it with them.

Final Note: (For Windows) If the computer does detect the drive, you can test the drive to make sure that there won’t be any ongoing issues by using Windows Data Lifeguard Diagnostics. (For Mac’s): You can test the drive by running First Aid.

If the software reports any errors for the drive, please see Data Lifeguard Tools 11 Error Codes for a list of error codes and what they mean.

IMPORTANT: To avoid corrupting or losing the data on your external hard drive you should always shut down the drive correctly before you disconnect the data cable from the drive or computer, or the power connection from the drive or the wall outlet.

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Western Digital Enters Solid State Drive Market

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM03 mins

western digital Western Digital, a world leader in hard drive storage for computing and consumer electronics applications, announced that it has completed a $65 million cash acquisition of SiliconSystems, Inc., Aliso Viejo, Calif., a leading supplier of solid state drives for the embedded systems market.

Since its inception in 2002, SiliconSystems has sold millions of SiliconDrive® products to meet the high performance, industrial, embedded-computing, medical, military and aerospace markets. These markets accounted for approximately one third of worldwide solid-state drive revenues in 2008. SiliconSystems’ product portfolio includes solid-state drives with SATA, EIDE, PC Card, USB and CF interfaces in 2.5-inch, 1.8-inch, CF and other form factors. SiliconSystems has developed extensive intellectual property to address the stringent embedded systems market requirements to ensure data integrity, eliminate unscheduled downtime, protect application data and software and provide for data security and protection through its patented and patent-pending PowerArmor®, SiSMART®, SolidStor® and SiSecure™ technologies.

WD’s storage industry leadership, worldwide infrastructure, and technical and financial resources will enable further growth in SiliconSystems’ existing markets and customer relationships. SiliconSystems’ intellectual property and technical expertise will provide additional building blocks for future products to address emerging opportunities in WD’s existing markets.

“We are delighted to have the SiliconSystems team join WD,” said John Coyne, president and CEO of WD. “The combination will be modestly accretive to revenue and margins as a result of SiliconSystems’ existing position as a trusted supplier to the well-established $400 million market for embedded solid-state drives. SiliconSystems’ intellectual property and technical expertise will significantly accelerate WD’s solid-state drive development programs for the netbook, client and enterprise markets, providing greater choice for our customers to satisfy all their storage requirements.”

Integration into WD begins immediately, with SiliconSystems now becoming known as the WD Solid-State Storage business unit, complementing WD’s existing Branded Products, Client Storage, Consumer Storage and Enterprise Storage business units.

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Hard drive diagnostic software:Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostics

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM05 mins

Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostic is free hard drive testing software designed for Western Digital branded hard drives. Data Lifeguard Diagnostic will also run diagnostics on hard drives from other manufacturers as long as the primary drive is Western Digital.

The Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostic software installs on Windows operating systems and allows for a number of hard drive tests. See the installation instructions from Western Digital in the link below for details.

Download: Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostics

How to test a drive for problems using Windows Data Lifeguard Diagnostics?

How can you use Windows Data Lifeguard Diagnostics to do the following:

  • Perform a quick test on a drive for problems
  • Get the serial number of a drive
  • Write zeros to a drive
  • Peform a full media scan on the drive for bad sectors

The Windows version of the Data Lifeguard Diagnostics utility can perform drive identification, diagnostics, and repairs on a Western Digital FireWire, EIDE, Serial ATA, and USB drive. In addition, it can provide you with the drive’s serial and model numbers.

To use the utility:

  1. Download Windows Data Lifeguard Diagnostics. You may need to extract this using an extraction utiltiy such as WinZip.
  2. Run the program, windlg.exe. If you’re running this under Windows Vista, you will need to Right-click on the windlg.exe file and select Run As Administrator.
  3. Read and accept the license agreement to continue.
  4. On the main program screen, there are two windows. In the top window, you will see the drives in your system that are available for testing. The model number, serial number, and capacity of each drive will be displayed. In the bottom window, the partition information for the selected drive will be displayed.
  5. Double-click the drive to be tested in the top window.
  6. The DLGDIAG – Select an Option window appears.
  7. You will see the following options:

    QUICK TEST – performs SMART drive quick self-test to gather and verify the Data Lifeguard information contained on the drive.

    EXTENDED TEST – performs a Full Media Scan to detect bad sectors. Test may take several hours to complete depending on the size of the drive.

    WRITE ZEROS – writes zeros to the drive with options of Full Erase and Quick Erase. File system and data will be lost.

    VIEW TEST RESULT – displays the latest test results.

  8. Select the test you wish to perform and click the Start button.
  9. When the test completes, you will be notified. Click the Close button.
  10. A web page will display the test results for the drive.

Note: Windows Data Lifeguard Diagnostics will test internal hard drives contained within a WD My Book Premium II and WD My Book Pro Edition II storage system. The RAID Array on these units does not need to be broken in order to test the internal drives. The only feature that will not be available with the diagnostics is the SMART data. The diagnostics will not read SMART data from the drives.

Related Links:

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