WD® Announces 2.5-inch, 10,000 RPM Enterprise SATA Hard Drives

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The World’s Fastest Enterprise SATA Hard Drive, WD VelociRaptor™,
Now Available for Low-power, High-performance Blade Server Applications<br/>
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<strong>Sydney, Australia</strong> – <strong>August 11, 2008</strong> –
WD® announced today the WD VelociRaptor™ 10,000 RPM enterprise SATA
hard drives in an enterprise-class 2.5-inch form factor for blade servers and
1U and 2U rack servers. The newest WD VelociRaptor hard drive is built for business-critical
applications with enterprise-class mechanics and packs up to 300 GB of capacity
into the enterprise small form factor bays, while consuming 35 percent less power
than the previous-generation WD Raptor® drive.<br/>
<br/>
“WD is bringing to enterprise customers what PC enthusiasts already appreciate
about the WD VelociRaptor: a combination of high performance and high capacity
for hard drive storage,” said John Rydning, IDC's research director for
hard disk drives. “WD's new WD VelociRaptor, designed specifically for the
enterprise in an energy efficient 2.5-inch form factor, gives system OEMs and
end users a new storage option to consider to meet growing storage requirements.”<br/>
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WD VelociRaptor 2.5-inch hard drives are designed and manufactured to enterprise-class
standards to provide high reliability in high duty cycle environments, resulting
in the highest available reliability rating of any SATA drive at 1.4 million hours
MTBF.<br/>
<br/>
“In the server market, demand for high performance drives continues to shift
from the 3.5-inch form factor to the enterprise 2.5-inch form factor,” said
Tom McDorman, vice president and general manager of WD’s Enterprise Storage
Solutions business unit. “The new 2.5-inch WD VelociRaptor drive is the
only drive available that can offer server customers the flexibility of integrating
SATA technology while benefiting from server-class performance and reliability.”<br/>
<br/>
<strong>Features of the new WD VelociRaptor hard drives include:<br/>
<br/>
</strong><strong>Killer Speed</strong> –10,000 RPM, SATA 3 Gb/s interface
and 16 MB cache deliver enterprise-class performance.<br/>
<strong>Rock-solid Reliability</strong> – WD VelociRaptor drives are designed
and manufactured to business-critical, enterprise-class standards to provide high
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.<br/>
<strong>Rotary Acceleration Feed Forward (RAFF™) technology</strong> –
Optimizes performance when the drives are used in vibration-prone, multi-drive
chassis.<br/>
<strong>Ultra-cool operation</strong> – WD VelociRaptor drives consume 35
percent less power than the previous generation of WD Raptor drive.<br/>
<strong>NoTouch™ ramp load technology </strong>– The recording head
never touches the disk media ensuring significantly less wear to the recording
head and media as well as better drive protection in transit.<br/>
<br/>
<strong>Product Summary</strong><br/>
Manufacturer: Western Digital<br/>
Product Name: WD VelociRaptor 2.5-inch<br/>
Warranty: 5-year limited warranty<br/>
Website: <a href="#">http://www.westerndigital.com</a><br/>
Product link and Photos: <a href="#">http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=494</a><br/>
Australian Distributors: Achieva, Synnex Australia, Today Tech, Westan<br/>
New Zealand Distributors: VST, Ingram Micro NZ, Synnex NZ<br/>
<br/>
<strong>About WD</strong><br/>
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.<br/>
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. This press release
contains forward-looking statements concerning availability and expected shipping
dates for WD VelociRaptor 10,000 RPM enterprise SATA hard drives in an enterprise-class
2.5-inch form factor.<br/>
<br/>
These forward-looking statements are based on WD's current expectations and are
subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially
from those expressed in the forward-looking statements, including: delays in manufacturing
and delivery schedules, supply and demand conditions, business conditions generally
and other risks and uncertainties listed in WD's recent Form 10-Q filed with the
SEC on May 6, 2008, to which your attention is directed. Readers are cautioned
not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only
as of the date hereof, and WD undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking
statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances.<br/>
<br/>
###<br/>
<br/>
Western Digital, WD, the WD logo and WD Raptor are registered trademarks of Western
Digital Technologies, Inc. WD VelociRaptor, RAFF and NoTouch are trademarks of
Western Digital Technologies, Inc. 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.<br/>
<br/>
<strong>PR CONTACT</strong><br/>
Renato Catalan<br/>
Gap Marketing and Management Pty Ltd<br/>
Website: www.gapmarketing.com.au<br/>

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