Tech Shout!

Western Digital has begun shipping its WD Caviar range of 3.5-inch hard drives based on 320 GB-per-platter technology, which is the same industry-leading storage areal density that the company has been shipping in its 160 GB-per-platter (320 GB capacity) 2.5-inch WD Scorpio drives since October last year.

Hossein Moghadam, chief technology officer of WD said, “Our technology investments and product roadmap execution have resulted in WD shipping the industry’s highest areal densities in the industry’s two highest volume markets.” Adding, “Our 250 gigabits-per-square-inch technology already has been reliably serving our 2.5-inch customers, and now it will benefit customers in the 3.5 inch desktop and other product areas.”

While the320 GB-per-platter technology will be installed across WD’s desktop business, CE and external hard drive product ranges, such as additional capacity points, throughout this 2008, an initial WD Caviar capacity point of 320 GB is available right away.

WD’s Caviar range of 3.5-inch desktop hard drives delivers optimum performance with 300 MB/s transfer rate, cache sizes up to 16 MB, Native Command Queuing (NCQ), and cool operating temperatures and quiet operation, making it possible for users to integrate WD products in the most demanding desktop and external storage environments.