WD External Drives Now in India

WD External Drives Now in India

Techtree News Staff, Sep 20, 2006 1838 hrs IST

Today, Western Digital (WD) announced availability of its external storage drives in the country. The company also said it is in volume production of...

Today, Western Digital (WD), a known manufacturer of hard drives, announced availability of its external storage drives in the country. Amongst the WD external drives making inroads into India are the My Book, Passport Pocket, and NetCenter series.

In another announcement, the company confirmed being in volume production of its Gen-Next Caviar Serial ATA (SATA) family of 3.5-inch desktop hard drives. These hard drives are built on 160 GB-per-platter technology, using WD designed and manufactured recording heads.

Part of the WD external drives making their debut in the country, the "My Book" external drives, are unique in that they resemble a book-shaped enclosure standing vertically on desktops and bookshelves, leaving behind a tiny footprint. Thanks to the vents around the book's page ends, the hard drive inside is kept cool and reliable.

Initially, only two members of this family will be available in the country; namely the 'My Book Essential Edition,' and the 'My Book Premium Edition' at prices of around Rs 15,600 and Rs 17,160 respectively (taken per 500GB capacity). The 'My Book Premium Edition' in particular incorporates a capacity guage, indicating balance storage capacity as and when more data is added.

The second type of external storage drives, the "Passport Pocket" drives, are miniature digital storage devices, capable of each holding up to five two-hour feature-length movies; 1,700 digital photos; 1,500 songs; and thousands of documents, thereby facilitating a moving digital library - literally.

Within these, the new 'USB 2.0 Passport Pocket' drive is about the size of a matchbox, and weighs only 1.6 ounces. It can store nearly 6GB of digital content, and, as the name suggests, fits snugly into the smallest of pockets.

This particular drive will ship for approximately Rs 5,200.

Lastly, the NetCenter external hard drive series is available in half-terabyte capacities, along with back-up and system recovery software. The drives belonging to this family offer multiple users both at home and in the office a convenient way to store, share, and back-up their data.

The NetCenter external hard drives will be priced at about Rs 20,800 (in 500GB capacity) each.

Speaking at the occasion, Sharad Srivastava, sales director, Western Digital (South Asia and India), said, "WD is committed to the India market, including the country s burgeoning consumer segment. As a result, we are continuously bringing new and innovative products to the market. With the evolution of the digital user, our external storage products will find applications across multiple business and consumer segments."

All new external storage drives will be available through Mediaman Infotech, which is WD's external drive distributor in the country.

As regards being in volume production of its Gen-X Caviar family of Serial ATA 3.5-inch desktop hard drives, WD said these drives incorporate ramp load technology, which is used in mobile-class drives, and which parks recording heads when the drive is idle, powered-off, and spinning-up. The use of ramp load maximizes shock robustness, minimizes power consumption, and ensures the highest quality and reliability.

Coming in capacities ranging from 40 GB to 500 GB, the Caviar desktop hard drives feature 7,200 RPM spindle speed, 300 MB/s transfer rate, cache sizes up to 16 MB, Native Command Queuing (NCQ), cool operating temperatures, and quieter operations.

Commenting on the Caviar series, John Coyne, president and chief operating officer, Western Digital, said, "Our high density 160 GB-per-platter design with ramp load is a platform that enables WD to continue serving our customers' growing needs for dependable, high capacity hard drives."