WD (Western Digital)

Western Digital Corporation (abbreviated WDC, commonly known as Western Digital and abbreviated WD) is an American computer hard disk drive manufacturer and data storage company. It designs, manufactures and sells data technology products, including storage devices, data center systems and cloud storage services.

Western Digital Corporation has a long history in the electronics industry as an integrated circuit maker and a storage products company. It is also one of the larger computer hard disk drive manufacturers, along with its primary competitor Seagate Technology.

In October 2010, Western Digital announced the shipment of first 3 TB internal hard disk drive, which has 750 GB-per-platter density with SATA interface.

In March 2011, Western Digital agreed to acquire the storage unit of Hitachi, HGST, for about $4.3 billion of which $3.5 billion was paid in cash and the rest with 25 million shares of Western Digital.

Western Digital “Red” 4 TB, a NAS-optimized 3.5-inch SATA HDD

In March 2012, Western Digital completed the acquisition of HGST and became the largest traditional hard drive manufacturer in the world; to address the requirements of regulatory agencies, in May 2012 Western Digital divested assets to manufacture and sell certain 3.5-inch hard drives for the desktop and consumer electronics markets to Toshiba.

In February 2014, Western Digital announced a new “Purple” line of hard disk drives for use in video surveillance systems, with capacities from 1 to 4 TB. They feature internal optimizations for applications that involve near-constant disk writing, and “AllFrame” technology which is designed to reduce write errors.