The Price: $699 for 2TB, $999 for 4TB (tested)

Verdict It's a cubular vault of 4TB of basically enterprise-class networked storage that sits on your desk and feels like it could stop a round from the world's deadliest carbine—what's not to like?

It's basically impossible to test actual drive reliability in the short span of review time (though everyone has their own opinion about which companies they love or loathe), so really what it comes down to here is ease of installation—which WD is touting heavily, so you won't need an IT geek—and features.

Western Digital's software walks you through most of the setup, though I still had to manually map the network drives in Vista, and Bonjour didn't automatically pick it up on my roommate's Mac. More frustrating is that despite having a gigabit router and using gigabit cables, I did not see gigabit speeds out of the box—or at all, with transfer speeds hovering around 10.5MB/s writing and 12MB/s pulling data. The default RAID5 configuration in the 4TB model (which balances redundancy against eating whole hard drives, leaving you with 2.66TB actually free) is noted for its relatively poor write performance compared to RAID1, and you'd be better off performance-wise with the latter if you're planning on doing a lot of write-intensive stuff, but that still doesn't explain the gap here.

It also comes with their automatic backup and remote access programs, Anywhere Backup and Mionet, though they annoyingly only give you three licenses for the latter, so if you've got four computers you want to continuously back up, you'll have to get another license. But whatever, the best feature is the built-in iTunes music server, which worked flawlessly. Dump a whole bunch of music into the shared music folder and it automatically shows up as a networked source in iTunes and showed up like magic on my PC and roommate's Mac.

Another (small) aggravation is that it's not hot swappable, so if you want to pop out one of the drives and maybe drop in a 1.5TB drive, you have to power the whole thing down. But I can almost forgive that since three USB ports let you plug other external drives into the box to expand storage even further.

While it's definitely overkill for average home usage, if you're that serious about centralized storage (like if you're if prosumer photographer) or you know, actually running a small business, despite its handful of flaws, if you've got the cash, it's definitely worth looking at. [Western Digital]

The Price: $250 as tested (320GB, 16MB cache and freefall sensor)

The Verdict...

I swapped out my stock Seagate 5400RPM 120GB drive from my MacBook Pro. Running some benchmarks, here's the before and after between the Seagate and the WD Scorpio Black.

What we see here is that the Scorpio is much faster for sequential reading and writing (dealing with big files and stuff organized physically close on your hard drive) but actually slightly slower for some random reading and writing (dealing with smaller chunks of data floating more freely on your hard drive).

But isn't the WD model supposed to be faster? Sure. But it's also over twice the size of my old Seagate. Such a test supports the classic ideology that an OS should be stored on a smaller drive quarantined from your other data to keep running quickly. Laptops rarely have that luxury.

That said, I haven't noticed anything running slower since the upgrade, but have noticed a few things running faster (that I don't think can be contributed to hard drive placebo effects). My 500+ site RSS reader loads quicker. And within Final Cut Pro, scrubbing the timeline is completely effortless.

Potential downsides: The drive makes an almost inaudible whir and seems to vibrate ever so slightly more than the old Seagate. This could have to do with the drive or the fact that my hands are less precise than the army of deft children's fingers piecing together Macbook Pros. As for battery life, WD claims it sucks no more power than their 5400 drives, but I can't test the theory with my aging lithium ions.

Final Verdict: Overall, for $250 (or less), it seems like a no-brainer upgrade to store more media...given how much this fancy machine cost me in the first place.

[Western Digital]

Gawker Media polls require Javascript; if you're viewing this in an RSS reader, click through to view in your Javascript-enabled web browser.

Update: By now, most of you have figured out that Iomega and LaCie only make the housings, so if the drive itself fails, you have to unscrew the box to see who the real culprit is. Also, anyone voting for IBM can just vote for Hitachi, which bought the whole IBM storage division a number of years ago.

As for those of you who complain that this poll is not scientific, you are TOTALLY RIGHT!!! It's not scientific. Go back to your Science and your Nature for the raw research, cuz over here we're talking about life experiences.

Even while the new 20,000RPM Raptor could be engineered to be ultra-fast and more or less silent at the same time, the challenges for a mechanical design are too many to ignore. Mainly, there's is the issue of power consumption: this rotation speed will require a lot of extra energy compared to normal drives, which is a bad spot in a market that is claiming for greener technology, and is moving away from the desktop into the mobile space, where power consumption is a make or break issue. The reliability of such a complex mechanical design would be another potential problem.

Everything to try to match Solid State Drives, which also will keep evolving, getting faster and even more efficient down the line. [Bit-Tech]

In fact, the Velociraptor bested the competition (Western Digital's old Raptor and the Samsung HD103UJ) in every test they threw at it. Plus it worked great in a RAID setup as well.

So then Maximum PC decided to pull out an SSD to see what the Velociraptor could really do. Of course, the $300 Velociraptor was thwarted by the more affluent $1,950 Mtron Pro-series 64-gigabyte SSD.

Still, in terms of bang for your buck, you aren't going to do any better than Western Digital's new chosen one. And besides, it's just a matter of time before someone rips off that heatsink and fits this 2.5" monster into a laptop.

Here's the full press release:

WD(R) Announces WD VelociRaptor(TM) - The World's Fastest SATA Hard Drive

Next-generation 10,000 RPM, 2.5-inch, 300 GB SATA Hard Drive, WD VelociRaptor is 35 Percent Faster and Twice the Capacity of the Previous Performance King

LAKE FOREST, Calif., April 21 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — WD(R) (NYSE: WDC) announced today that it is now shipping WD VelociRaptor(TM) hard drives, the next generation of its 10,000 RPM SATA "Raptor" series of drives. Designed with an enterprise-class foundation, the new WD VelociRaptor hard drive is modified specifically for PC and Mac(R) enthusiasts and professional workstations. Destined to become the new high-performance favorite of these groups, the WD VelociRaptor hard drive comes packed with twice the capacity and a 35 percent performance increase over the previous generation.
From the bloodlines of the WD Raptor, the most popular hard drive for high-performance enthusiasts who demand the ultimate SATA drive, the WD VelociRaptor hard drive is built with enterprise-class mechanics and packs 300 GB of storage capacity into a 2.5-inch enterprise form factor. The 2.5-inch WD VelociRaptor drive is enclosed in the IcePack(TM), a 3.5-inch mounting frame with a built-in heat sink — a customization that fits the drive into a standard 3.5-inch system bay and keeps this powerful drive extra cool when installed in a high-performance desktop chassis.
"Demand for ever-higher PC performance continues to increase and WD is the leader in this category with the WD Raptor. We created WD VelociRaptor hard drives to lead PC enthusiasts into the next era of PC and Mac storage performance and satisfy their insatiable thirst for computing speed," said Tom McDorman, vice president and general manager of WD's enterprise business unit. "The new WD VelociRaptor delivers the greatest performance and reliability of all SATA hard drives currently on the market."
WD VelociRaptor is the next step up for the speed-craving PC enthusiast, and as with all WD drives, attention to detail in features, performance and reliability is a top priority. Features of the new WD VelociRaptor hard drives include:

Killer Speed — Built on the performance of the WD Raptor, these 10,000

RPM drives, with SATA 3 Gb/s interface, and 16 MB cache deliver mind-
bending performance.

Rock-solid Reliability — WD VelociRaptor drives are designed and
manufactured to business-critical, enterprise-class standards to provide
enterprise reliability in high duty cycle environments. The design
results in the highest available reliability rating of any SATA drive at
1.4 million hours MTBF.

IcePack Mounting Frame — The 2.5-inch WD VelociRaptor drives are
enclosed in a 3.5-inch enterprise-class mounting frame with a built-in
heat sink that keeps this powerful little drive extra cool when installed
in high-performance desktop chassis.

Rotary Acceleration Feed Forward (RAFF(TM)) — Optimizes performance when
the drives are used in vibration-prone, multi-drive chassis.

SecurePark(TM) — Parks the recording heads off the disk surface during
spin up, spin down and when the drive is off. This ensures the recording
head never touches the disk surface, resulting in improved long-term
reliability and increased drive protection when the chassis is moved.

Price and Availability
WD VelociRaptor (model WD3000GLFS) hard drives will be available on Alienware's high-performance ALX gaming desktop by the end of April. At launch, Alienware will offer maximum performance with two 300 GB WD VelociRaptor hard drives in RAID 0 configuration on www.alienware.com. WD VelociRaptor hard drives will be shipping exclusively through Alienware this month and will be available through the company's online store (http://www.shopwd.com) and at select distributors and resellers mid-May. Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) for the WD VelociRaptor 300 GB is $299.99 USD. More information about WD VelociRaptor hard drives may be found on the company's Web site.

On the other hand, the $399 and $599 price tag for the 1 and 2TB versions seem way higher than the $200-300 you're normally paying for drives of that size—but those usually don't have all these connectivity options. To round out the features, there's an external capacity-indicating LED and Western Digital's GreenPower technology. It's also silver to match your MacBook Pros. Wee! [Western Digital]

I said "void the warranty" and I meant it. The process I went through today means it'll be harder for me to complain to Apple if things get weird, so be cautious! Given the experience I've had, I think it will get easier and easier to swap HDDs, like RAM, because on the software side, at least as far as Apple goes, installing a fresh 2.5" SATA turns out to be straightforward, and ready for novices.

The key here is that there's no preparation needed for the new drive. As long as you've backed up your old drive to an external disk using Time Machine, you can prepare for the grand opening. I won't bore you with gory details, except to say that I found a good bit of guidance from this dude's blog.
The Process
From here on in, this issue may just as well apply to MacBooks and even iMacs as well as MacBook Pros, so everyone should take note.

Once you open up the system and swap out the drives, you can set the old drive aside, hopefully never to use it again. Assuming all went well, you restart the system and insert an OS X Leopard installation DVD. You won't need the OS installer on it, but you will need it to act as mediator between the Time Machine backup drive and the newly installed blank drive. Once it boots up (you may need to manually restart to get it to work right) follow these instructions CAREFULLY:

1. Choose your language.

2. At the main screen, choose Disk Utility from the Utilities pull-down menu.

3. Select the drive itself and click on Partition.

4. In the Partition menu, select 1 Partition and Options... where you choose GUID Partition Table. Click OK then Apply, then say "yes" to whatever warning comes up.

5. Once you have reformatted the drive, close the Disk Utility window.

6. Do Not Go Forward. Instead, when you see the main Welcome screen, click the Back button, which takes you to the language select page. It sounds silly but DO IT. This shakes the system into action.

7. Once you have reselected your language and are back on the Welcome screen, click Utilities and select Restore System From Backup...

8. The process should go smoothly from that point on. You simply select appropriate disks to copy your chosen backup data from your Time Machine drive to the new internal drive, as shown in the following sequence:

The Back Story
Originally I tried my swap without first clicking back to the language page, and the installer could not find my new hard drive. Disk Utility saw it and happily formatted it with the GUID partition, but even on the second pass, the installer wouldn't show it as a target option. All I got was this hollow emptiness:
I spoke with Jeerun Chan at Western Digital and asked him to try the same process, which yielded the same results. Then I tried it with another virginal hard drive, this time a 160GB SATA from Seagate. Between the two of us, we ran this test on three different configurations, with the same negative results.

The obvious but depressing solution was to just run the Leopard system installer, then use the migration tool to back up from my Time Machine drive. It's fairly smooth, and smart if you want a clean install on your new drive, but it's boring: it takes a few steps, and they're all obvious. I wanted a bit-for-bit dump from backup to new drive, fully automatic.

As I was installing Leopard on my second drive, the phone rang: it was Jeerun with the crazy back-button technique. I don't know how he thought to do it—I don't even think he knows, but the fact remains: when you have formatted your destination drive and are on the Welcome screen, click the back button and the process will work. If you don't click it, well, in our experience, it seems you will fail in your objective.

Obviously, this won't work if you don't regularly do a full system backup in Time Machine. If the omitted folders in your Time Machine options include system files, you won't be able to do this.

In truth, it might make sense to backup only personal files, especially since this process requires a Leopard install disk even to write the whole image back onto the new drive. Chen swears by SuperDuper, which is perhaps a better pro technique, one that doesn't require a system-install DVD. Still, I wanted to see if this major boast of Time Machine was all that it was cracked up to be. It is, and the end result will be tasty, as long as you don't forget that one little catch.

As with my last Time Machine HDD discovery, this one involves a little hocus pocus. While this method works, you may have your own trick, or a more scientific approach. If so, please share it in the comments below, and spare any fellow Mac users a frustrating afternoon.

Thanks to Jeerun and Heather at WD!

WD(R) Delivers Hundreds More Hours to High Definition TiVo(R) DVRs

My DVR Expander(TM) External Hard Drives Verified Compatible with TiVo Series3(TM) HD And TiVo HD DVRs

LAKE FOREST, Calif., Oct. 23 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Expanding consumers' TV recording capabilities by as many as hundreds of hours, WD(R) (NYSE: WDC) today announced that its My DVR Expander(TM) external hard drives are verified compatible with TiVo(R) HD and TiVo Series3(TM) DVRs (digital video recorders). Available now at Best Buy retail stores and online at TiVo.com/store, the My DVR Expander external hard drive is capable of storing up to 300 hours of digital standard-definition (SD) or up to 60 hours of high-definition (HD) television programming based on 500 GB of hard drive storage(1). Users can instantly expand their recording capacity by simply attaching the My DVR Expander drive to their TiVo HD and TiVo Series3 HD DVRs. The My DVR Expander external hard drive is designed for TiVo subscribers who want even more room to store not only broadcast content, but also broadband content that TiVo makes available through TiVoCast partners, including movie and TV downloads via Amazon Unbox(TM) on TiVo.

"We're thrilled to team up with WD to enhance the personal viewing experience on TiVo by providing subscribers with an easy-to-use solution that allows them to get even more out of their DVR with extra hours of space for more of the content they enjoy," said Jim Denney, vice president of product marketing, TiVo. "With the growth in HD content available today, DVR capacity becomes more important to our subscribers who do not want to miss a minute of their favorite TV shows."

"As the adoption of storage-hungry HDTV continues to grow, the demand for additional storage becomes increasingly important to consumers," said Jim Welsh, vice president and general manager of WD's branded products and consumer electronics businesses. "WD's My DVR Expander external hard drive enables consumers to have greater control and convenience over their entertainment options."

Compatibility

The My DVR Expander external hard drive, a TiVo Verified(TM) product, has been tested for compatibility with TiVo HD and TiVo Series3 HD DVRs. It is certified compatible with Scientific Atlanta 8300 Series digital video recorders (including models 8300 HD, 8300 MR and 8300 HD-MR). Further compatibility of the My DVR Expander drive is planned as other cable and satellite DVR manufacturers enable the eSATA (external SATA) ports on their currently-deployed DVRs.

Availability and Pricing

WD's My DVR Expander external hard drive is available now in the United States from Best Buy retail stores and by ordering online from TiVo.com/store. MSRP for the My DVR Expander drive with 500 GB is $199.99 USD.

More information on the My DVR Expander external drive may be found at http://www.tivo.com/expand.

Other than a 500GB capacity, a $219.99 price point, a telltale name of My Book (Western Digital) TiVo DVR Expander and an expected shipping time of 1-2weeks, there is little other information available here. What more information do you need? [Best Buy via ZNF]

WD(R) Demonstrates Highest Hard Drive Density Company Achieves 520 Gb/in2 Areal Density in Demonstration; Result of Ongoing Technology Investments TOKYO and FREMONT, Calif., Oct. 17 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Western Digital Corp. (NYSE: WDC) today announced that it has achieved 520 Gb/in2 areal density — the hard drive industry's highest demonstrated density to date using continuous media. The company revealed the milestone this week at the Perpendicular Magnetic Recording Conference in Tokyo after an earlier demonstration in California . Following WD's growing investments in technology the past five years, the company achieved 520 Gb/in2 using its own perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR)/tunneling magneto-resistive (TuMR) head technology. This level of density produces a 3.5-inch hard drive storing 640 GB-per-platter and single hard drive capacities as large as 3 TB. Based on the industry's current density growth rate of more than 40 percent per year, those capacities are expected to be available in the 2010 timeframe. Current industry-leading hard drive densities shipping in high volume are about 200 Gb/in2, as featured in WD's 250 GB WD Scorpio(R) 2.5-inch drive for notebooks and mobile applications, which began shipping in May 2007. "WD was the first hard drive manufacturer to ship in volume the 250 GB capacity point in the 2.5-inch form factor," said Hossein Moghadam, chief technology officer for WD. "Our technology investments position WD with our customers as a leading choice for the highest, cutting-edge capacities. Our top priority will be to remain keenly focused on providing the highest quality and reliability, which customers have come to expect from WD after years of relying on our products." WD demonstrated 520 Gb/in2 density in its Magnetic Head Operation labs in Fremont, Calif., earlier this month. Moghadam added, "The milestone was realized using our current-technology MgO reader, illustrating the extendibility of PMR-TuMR head technology generations into the future." 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 andretailers under the Western Digital and WD brand names. Visit the Investor section of the company's Web site (http://www.westerndigital.com) to access a variety of financial and investor information.

This press release contains forward-looking statements, including statements relating to density growth rates, dates certain capacities are expected to be available based on those growth rates and the extendibility of PMR-TuMR head technology generations into the future. These forward-looking statements are based on current management expectations, and actual results may differ materially as a result of several factors, including: technical and manufacturing challenges related to changes in areal density; changes in technology; business conditions generally; and other risks and uncertainties listed in WD's recent SEC filings, including its form 10-K for fiscal 2007. WD undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements to reflect new information or events or for any other reason.

Western Digital, WD and the WD logo are registered trademarks of Western Digital Technologies, Inc. All other trademarks herein are property of their respective owner. One gigabyte (GB) = 1 billion bytes. Total accessible capacity varies depending on operating environment.

Section 337 bans all product importation when they infringe upon U.S. patents. Which if the International Trade Commission judge sides with the patent holder, the aforementioned companies will be subject to. Although this will only be a problem for the companies if the court sides in favor of the patent holders, Steven and Mary Reiber. Even then, they can still appeal that ruling as well, and if history gives us any clues (Remember Qualcomm?), then the hard drive manufacturers just might get off this time. Otherwise Samsung looks like it will be getting a lot of new business[Ars Technica]

The 3.5" SATA drives for desktops, the WD Caviar GP series, are now available, ranging from 320GB to 1TB. The press release claims that switching to a GreenPower 1TB is "the equivalent of taking your car off the road for 14 days each year." The more believable claim is that you will save "up to $10 per drive per year in electricity costs." So it practically pays for itself, in, like, 30 or 40 years.

Key features:

IntelliPower - A fine-tuned balance of spin speed, transfer rate and cache size designed to deliver both significant power savings and solid performance.

IntelliSeek - Calculates optimum seek speeds to lower power consumption, noise and vibration. View demo >

IntelliPark - Delivers lower power consumption by automatically unloading the heads during idle to reduce aerodynamic drag.

Perpendicular Magnetic Recording (PMR) - Employ PMR technology to achieve even greater areal density.

StableTrac - The motor shaft is secured at both ends to reduce system-induced vibration and stabilize platters for accurate tracking, during read and write operations.

From the press release:

WD'S New GreenPower Hard Drives Reduce Energy Consumption, Helping Protect the Environment

Company's First One Terabyte Drive Enables Up To 40% Hard Drive Power Savings for Desktop, Enterprise, CE and WD Branded Customers

LAKE FOREST, Calif., July 23 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/—Western Digital Corp. (NYSE: WDC) today announced a new environmentally friendly GreenPower(TM) family of WD(R) desktop, enterprise, CE and external hard drive products. The new GreenPower (GP) family will ship in capacities from 320 gigabytes (GB) to one terabyte (TB), and will save up to 40% in hard drive power consumption, or as much as $10 per drive per year.

Based on extensive customer input toward supporting ENERGY STAR 4.0 compliance and incorporating the latest in engineering technology, WD has delivered the first 3.5-inch hard drive platform designed with power savings as the primary attribute. The GreenPower family gives customers more choices when it comes to purchasing hard drives. The initial drive that will take advantage of WD's new GreenPower technology is the WD Caviar GP. The WD Caviar GP 1TB hard drive will first ship in July in the My Book(TM) range of storage appliances, with 1TB desktop channel shipments following in August.

GreenPower versions of WD RE enterprise drives and WD AV consumer electronics drives will ship in volume within calendar Q3.

ENERGY STAR 4.0 computing systems are designed to enable organizations to minimize their carbon footprint as well as realize significant savings in electricity costs. By WD estimates, in certain applications, the new GreenPower platform can save greater than $10 per drive per year in electricity costs. For example, a data center with 10,000 drives can save $100,000 in annual energy costs, and reduce CO2 emission by 600 metric tons—the equivalent of taking almost 400 cars off the road for a year.

Press Release

Product Page [Western Digital]

Western Digital has just announced their new WD Scorpio 250GB, a Serial ATA 2.5-inch hard drive for notebooks which, at 3.94 x 2.75 x 0.354 inches, is the largest smallest shipping hard drive in the world. The 5400rpm 12ms read seek time WD Scorpio uses Perpendicular Magnetic Recording, and you will find all its features and price after the jump.

While Fujitsu and other companies have announced similar units, the WD Scorpio is shipping now with capacities that will range from 40GB to 250GB, with a 5400rpm speed and 8MB buffer. According to Western Digital, it gives a 12ms read seek time and 2.0ms track-to-track seek time, with a 4.20ms average latency.

The hard drive features their WhisperDrive technology, which they say "combines state-of-the-art seeking algorithms to yield it one of the quietest 5400 RPM." That means an average 24dBA while idle and 26dBA while seeking on average. It also has Western Digital's IntelliSeek technology, which basically means a reduction in the motion in the disk which in turn "reduces power usage by more than 60 percent compared with standard drives." We don't know if those "standard drives" are competing drives with similar technologies or Winchester drives from 1974. What we know is the price: $199.99 gigantic amounts of porn and pirated DVD movies not included. – Jesus Diaz

Product page [Western Digital]

Sifting through the crap that is the horrible press release, the 1TB models can use that Gigabit Ethernet connection to connect directly to your router, which then allows you to access your data from anywhere without actually having to turn on your PC. Essentially a cheap NAS, these WD My Books could be a decent way to let your family members access your photos without going through something like Flickr. – Jason Chen

Press Release [Western Digital]

So what's the point of all this if you can still only use 20GB hard drives, and can only use one series of hard drive? You can save money. Right now, the official 20GB Xbox 360 hard drive costs $100, while for around $60 you can find compatible 40GB hard drives (and for around $100, you can find 100GB hard drives). This is a good start and complements the other Xbox 360 hacks we've seen. – Nicholas Deleon

TheSpecialist's HDDHacker v0.5B - Install your Own HDD on Xbox360! [Xbox-Scene]

If you're feeling lucky, you can go in and start adding random stuff to your cart and checking if the relevant coupon codes work. FREEXBOX360, FREEPUPPY, and FREE108INCHHDTV are some to try first. – Jason Chen

Hard Drive [Geeks.com]

Enclosure [Geeks.com]

500GB Western Digital SATA Drive Deal [I Like Cheap Stuff]

It's always good to have more storage. Plus with Vista coming out, you'll need all that space when you convert your PC to a DVR. Battlestar Galactica doesn't record itself. – Jason Chen

Product Page [Dell via CheapstingyBargains]

When we reported on the similar My Book Pro 500GB model with FireWire 400, 800 and USB just three months ago, it was $350, now here's the twice-as-big 1TB version retailing for $549. Plus, the RAID-striped drives inside make for fast response and transfers.

We're warming up to these Western Digital bookish-looking drives, as we're really needing space to store all those huge video files. A tera for $549? Such a deal.

Product Page [Western Digital]

Product Page [Via EverythingUSB]

The lawsuit stemmed because Western Digital decided to interpret one gigabyte as 1 billion bytes, while actual operating systems like Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X interpret one gigabyte by the correct number of 1.07 billion bytes. This 7-percent shortfall would be like losing 5.6GB of storage space on an 80GB hard drive. If you too have been victimized by Western Digital, then you can claim your free correction software here. – Travis Hudson

Western Digital Settles Capacity Dispute [Sydney Morning Herald]

One distinguishing feature of all three of these drives is their capacity gauge, that backlit blue bullseye LED on the front that shows at a glance how much space you have left on the drive. Hey, that's a great idea. And then there's that nostalgic look of the drive itself designed by IDEO, and yes, that's actually what books looked like, back in olden times. – Charlie White

Update: Reader Brad tells us that not all Western Digital MyBook drives have the external gauge for percentage filled. The MyBook Essential (green box) does NOT have it. The others do. Thanks, Brad!

Product page [Western Digital]

Its USB 2.0 jack is nothing new, rotating into the drive housing just like many of its competitors do, a good thing because that gives it room to squeeze into overpopulated USB port areas on even the busiest computers. Available now, it's retailing for $130.

WD Unveils 6GB pocket drive [Reg Hardware]

It might be a bit awkward to actually have these on your bookshelf, since both require an AC adapter. They're set to ship by the end of this month, with pricing for the Premium Edition between $180 and $350 and for the Essential Edition between $150 and $330.

WD brings external hard drive biz to book [Reg Hardware]

Western Digital has upgraded its "Passport Portable" USB drive. Now you can get one with 120GB capacity. Formerly, units were 40GB, 60GB and 80GB, so this is a considerable upgrade. Retails for about $277.

Western Digital ups USB drives to 120GB [The Inquirer}

Pricing on Western Digital Passport hard drive line [Amazon]

Here's another tiny hard drive, this time from Western Digital, which has cleverly named it after fish eggs. The Caviar SE16 has a 300MBps transfer rate, spins at 7200RPM spindle speed and comes with 16MB of cache. But the interesting feature here is what Western Digital is calling WhisperDrive, a technology it believes will lessen the noise of the drive—costing it a bit of performance. Not sure how much you need such a quiet drive, but most people I know would rather have the speed. Costs $349.

Western Digital releases 500GB drives [The Inquirer]

Got a PC decked out with neon lights, case mods, and Quake 4? This is the hard disk for you. The Western Digital Raptor X is a powerhouse 10,000rpm, SATA hard drive with 16MB cache and Native Command Queuing. The only size available is 150GB and the casing is a clear, see-through style that I'm sure looks awesome next to your cold cathodes. WD is marketing the Raptor X as a hard drive for performance enthusiasts who demand top-notch gear for gaming, rendering, and other intense tasks. You can expect the Raptor X to be shipping sometime by the end of Q1. Performance doesn't come cheap, though—be prepared to shell out $349 for the 150GB model.

Western Digital See-Through HDD [BIOS]

Specs and pricing on Western Digital HDDs [Amazon]