WD® Delivers USB 3.0 and 3 Terabytes With Its New External Hard Drive Product Lines

LAKE FOREST, Calif., Oct. 5 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- WD® (NYSE: WDC), the world's leader in external storage solutions, today introduced its new My Passport® Essential™ portable hard drive (photo), My Passport® Essential™ SE portable hard drive (photo), and My Book® Essential external hard drive (photo). All three drive families come in a variety of capacities and offer lightning-fast USB 3.0 connectivity (1). Highest industry capacity is another key feature for the My Book Essential drive, which is now available in 3 TB capacity, in addition to 1 and 2 TB capacities. Equipped with WD SmartWare™ visual backup software for automatic, continuous backup, these drives provide users the extra space they need to store or back up all of their digital memories, such as high-resolution photos and videos, along with music and other critical files, all in one place.

The drives not only take advantage of the latest blazing-fast USB 3.0 technology, but are also fully compatible with USB 2.0 connections for those who have yet to upgrade their computers to USB 3.0. When connected to a SuperSpeed USB 3.0 port, consumers can transfer data at speeds up to 5 Gb/s. At that rate, a two-hour HD video will transfer in as little as three minutes. The same two-hour video would take approximately 13 minutes to transfer on a USB 2.0 port(2).

My Passport Essential, still WD's smallest portable drive, is available in a 500 GB capacity and comes in five fun colors – Midnight Black, Cool Silver, Real Red, Pacific Blue and Arctic White (Arctic White only available in EMEA and APAC). My Passport Essential SE portable hard drives are available in 750 GB and 1 TB capacities and come in stylish black, silver, metallic blue and metallic red colors. The pocket-sized My Passport portable hard drives are powered directly through the USB cable; no separate power supply is needed(3).

My Book Essential, the world's number-one selling hard drive, also impresses with its small footprint, sleek design and high-capacity storage ranging from 1 TB up to a massive 3 TB(4). The drive is compatible with both USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 ports, and uses WD SmartWare visual backup software.

"With more and more devices like the iPod touch®, iPhone®4 and other smartphones adding video-capable cameras, digital video is becoming ubiquitous. Most homes already have thousands of photos and music files, increasing the need for storage around the house. Having the extra capacity to store these files and move them around quickly is becoming a big issue for many consumers around the world," said Dale Pistilli, vice president of marketing for WD's branded products group. "WD's newest line of My Book and My Passport external hard drives features the latest USB 3.0 connection technology, which more than triples the speed to transfer media files, but still works with today's USB 2.0 ports. In addition, consumers can take advantage of the highest capacity available on external hard drives with the new 3 TB My Book Essential drive."

Features:

My Book Essential external hard drives, My Passport Essential and My Passport Essential SE portable hard drives feature:      

• Dual USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 interfaces;
• Up to 3x faster transfer rates when compared to USB 2.0;
• WD SmartWare software for automatic, continuous backup;
• Password protection for privacy; and,
• Planet-friendly packaging from recycled materials which can, in turn, also be recycled.

Capacity and Compatibility:

The My Passport Essential portable hard drive is available in 500 GB capacity. The My Passport Essential SE portable hard drive is available in 750 GB and 1 TB capacities. The My Book Essential external hard drive is available in 1 TB, 1.5 TB, 2 TB and 3 TB capacities. The drives are formatted NTFS for Windows® XP, Windows Vista®, or Windows 7. These drives require reformatting for Mac® OS® X Leopard® or Snow Leopard®.

Price and Availability

My Passport Essential portable hard drives and My Book Essential external hard drives offer a 2-year limited warranty in the U.S. and are now available at select U.S. retailers and online at wdstore.com.

MSRP for the My Passport Essential portable drive is $99.99 USD. MSRP for My Passport Essential SE drives ranges from $129.99 USD to $169.99 USD. MSRP for My Book Essential drives ranges from $129.99 USD to $249.99 USD.

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.

This press release contains forward-looking statements, including statements relating to expected growth in consumer demands for electronics devices. These forward-looking statements are based on current management expectations, and actual results may differ materially as a result of several factors, including business conditions generally and other risks and uncertainties listed in WD's recent SEC filings. WD undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements to reflect new information or events or for any other reason.

Western Digital, WD, the WD logo, My Passport, My Book, and WD Caviar are registered trademarks in the U.S. and other countries; My Passport Essential, WD SmartWare, and WD Caviar Green are trademarks of Western Digital Technologies, Inc. Other marks may be mentioned herein that belong to other companies. Pictures shown may vary from actual products. Not all products may be available in all regions of the world. All product and packaging specifications are subject to change without notice. The term of your limited warranty depends on the country in which your product was purchased. Please visit our website at http:support.wdc.com/warranty for the detailed terms and conditions of our limited warranty and for a list of the specific countries in these regions. As used for storage capacity, one gigabyte (GB) = one billion bytes and one terabyte (TB) = one trillion bytes. Total accessible capacity varies depending on operating environment. As used for transfer rate or interface, megabyte per second (MB/s) = one million bytes per second.

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SOURCE Western Digital Technologies