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WD

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hard drives

Western Digital 320GB My Passport Essential Drives: Pretty and Priced Right

Today Western Digital introduced its newly redesigned My Passport Essential drives, in capacities of 160, 250 and 320GB, that last one priced at a very pleasant $200. The shiny bus-powered drives don't pack anything unusual, but they do come with WD Sync for easy Windows backup and 128-bit encryption. [WD]

8:22 AM on Wed Jan 30 2008
By Wilson Rothman
9,439 views, 27 comments

time machine hdd swap

The Secret of the Time Machine-Assisted Hard Drive Swap

There's never been a better time to void the warranty on your MacBook Pro and upgrade to one of those sweet 2.5" WD Scorpio 320GB drives. That was what made me throw caution to the wind and attempt a Time Machine-assisted swap. The good news is, it works as billed. You get a bit-for-bit transfer to the virgin drive with minimal fuss. The bad news is, if you don't use a little trick we discovered today, you probably won't get it to work at all. More »

12:00 AM on Thu Dec 13 2007
By Wilson Rothman
47,446 views, 60 comments

Latest by Raygo: Followed these instructions for a full system restore and my MBP will not get the gray "Appled" screen and keeps restarting. Re-erased, Re-restored and had ACL errors come up and would not let me know repair disk permissions Could someone help? Thanks more »

storage

Western Digital Finally Pops 320GB USB-Powered Passport Drive

When you saw the news that WD launched a 320GB Scorpio laptop drive, you knew it was only a matter of time before a bus-powered Passport external version showed up. It'll come with WD Sync software (featuring 128-bit encryption; Windows only of course), deliver 480Mbps transfer speeds, and you can pick from five colors: glossy black, glossy white, metallic red, vibrant(?) green and metallic pink. Here's the best part: the 320GB Passport will only set you back $230—or less. [WD]

8:34 AM on Mon Dec 3 2007
By Wilson Rothman
3,873 views, 18 comments

Latest by BarkoNorwang: And that was 5 days ago (the end of November) more »

storage

Western Digital Ships 320GB 2.5-Inch Drives for Laptops

It's official: you can now buy a 320GB drive from WD for your laptop, and for just $200. The WD Scorpio SATA drive spins at 5400rpm and has a 8MB cache. The press release says it's "extraordinarily quiet while running at cool operating temperatures." I hope that doesn't mean it's extremely loud while running at super high temperatures. The important thing is, this timing coincides with the arrival of Mac's Time Machine and the Windows Home Server, two easy ways to offload your laptop's entire contents, swap out the internal drive, then restore your old image without a lot of tinkering. I know some of you like tinkering, but this is the future. [WD]

9:41 AM on Wed Oct 31 2007
By Wilson Rothman
11,190 views, 19 comments

Latest by glebec: Oh good... I just got a MBP (Oct. 1) with 160GB 7200rpm and after the fact I realized that wasn't going to be enough in the long term. Now the question is, when to upgrade (and cut off Apple support)? more »

storage

Western Digital Announces Record Breaking Hard Drive Density

Today Western Digital announced that it has achieved 520 Gb/in2 areal density in an actual demonstration using its own perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR)/tunneling magneto-resistive (TuMR) head technology. For those of you who are counting, that makes it the highest density ever reached using continuous media. A density of this magnitude produces a 3.5-inch hard drive storing 640 GB-per-platter and single hard drive capacities as large as 3 TB. Compare that to the current leading density of around 200 Gb/in2 being shipped high volume products like WD's 250 GB Scorpio(R) 2.5-inch drive. That's all well and good, but it looks like you will have to wait to get your hands on this technology. Current estimates put the release at around 2010.
More »

8:20 PM on Wed Oct 17 2007
By Sean Fallon
3,144 views, 14 comments

Latest by rainfever: I always thought that once Hitachi took over the IBM drives they were good to go (ie no longer deathstar)... so is that wrong? i have no data to support either way. Oh, and someone around here knows which manufacturers make the more »

peripherals

Western Digital Launches Efficient GreenPower Drives, From 320GB to 1TB

Like other companies hoping to cast a greenish hue on whirring machinery, Western Digital today unveiled GreenPower, a line of internal hard drives that focus on efficiency. That is, they use 40% less power than the competition thanks to some fancy engineering. More »

9:31 AM on Mon Jul 23 2007
By Wilson Rothman
5,845 views, 15 comments

storage

WD's Passport Portable Now Holds 250GB of Porn, Perfect for Dads and Grads


Western Digital just announced that its bus-powered $199 USB drive now has a 250GB 2.5" hard disk inside. And yeah, you got me, it doesn't just hold porn. It will also hold every TV show you ever downloaded from BitTorrent, and the three episodes of Lost you once legally purchased from iTunes. According to WD's press release, it will also suffice for all of those digital pictures and videos you've been taking. (I'm not sure I want to hear about those.) – Wilson Rothman More »

8:29 AM on Wed Jun 6 2007
By Wilson Rothman
8,187 views, 13 comments

Latest by samsonsu: WD Passport's power supply is a big problem. They only give you a standard MiniUSB cable and some computers (actually, many computers, in my experience) don't provide enough power for the drive to spin up. My friend's WDPP 120G works on more »