New My Passport® Essential™ Limited Edition Designs Portable Drives Personalize Storage With Signature Styles

LAKE FOREST, Calif., July 22 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- WD® (NYSE: WDC), the world's leader in external storage solutions, today introduced its new 500 GB My Passport® Essential™ limited edition designs (photo) portable hard drives, available exclusively at Best Buy® and WD's store. Consumers can choose from several unique designs that appeal to a wide variety of personal styles, ranging from outdoor enthusiasts to urban trendsetters.  

Designed by students at California State University, Long Beach's Industrial Design program, the drives are available in the following styles: Boom Box, Black Hole, Cityscape, Fuchsia Leaf and Wave. The decorative patterns are especially geared for students who want to express their individual style while choosing a reliable, ultra-portable place to store their media and back up their valuable work.

The drives are Windows® compatible and include WD SmartWare™ software, which provides a simple, visual method for backup using a single-screen view of the drive's contents.

"The contents of individuals' portable storage contain all the ways they express themselves – music, images, and videos – and tell a story about who they are," said Dale Pistilli, vice president of marketing of WD's branded products group. "Expressing individual style is important. That's why we teamed up with California State University, Long Beach design students, who have their finger on the latest fashion trends."

My Passport Essential limited edition designs portable drives also feature user-selected password protection combined with 256-bit hardware-based encryption. Typically found only on much more expensive drive systems, the encryption acts as a virtual padlock to keep users' data private.

Price and Availability

The new My Passport Essential limited edition designs are offered in 500 GB and have a 2-year limited warranty. My Passport Essential limited edition designs are now available exclusively at Best Buy and online at www.wdstore.com. MSRP is $119.99 USD.

My Passport Essential Limited Edition Designs

The new WD My Passport Essential limited edition designs portable hard drives feature:

• Five unique designs that let consumers express their individuality;
• 256-bit hardware encryption for peace of mind knowing that data is protected from unauthorized access;
• USB 2.0 interface that powers(1) the drive directly from the USB port on a user's computer (no separate power supply is needed);
• Planet-friendly packaging derived from recycled materials to minimize waste;
• Ready to plug-and-play with Windows PCs; and,
• A 2-year limited warranty.

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 designs and produces reliable, high-performance hard drives and solid state drives that keep users' data accessible and secure from loss. Its advanced technologies are configured into applications for client and enterprise computing, embedded systems and consumer electronics, as well as its own consumer storage and media products.

WD was founded in 1970. The company's storage products are marketed to leading OEMs, systems manufacturers, selected resellers and retailers under the Western Digital® and WD brand names. Visit the Investor section of the company's website (www.westerndigital.com) to access a variety of financial and investor information.

Western Digital, WD, the WD logo, and My Passport  are registered trademarks; Essential and WD SmartWare are trademarks of Western Digital Technologies, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. Other marks may be mentioned herein that belong to other companies. All other brand and product names mentioned herein are the property of their respective companies. One gigabyte (GB) = 1 billion bytes. Total accessible capacity varies depending on operating environment.

(1) An optional cable is available for the few computers that limit power from the USB port.

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SOURCE Western Digital Technologies