Western Digital
When Western Digital introduced its Ultrastar DC SN861 SSDs earlier this year, the company did not disclose which controller it used for these drives, which made many observers presume that WD was using an in-house controller. But a recent teardown of the drive shows that is not the case; instead, the company is using a controller from Fadu, a South Korean company founded in 2015 that specializes on enterprise-grade turnkey SSD solutions. The Western Digital Ultrastar DC SN861 SSD is aimed at performance-hungry hyperscale datacenters and enterprise customers which are adopting PCIe Gen5 storage devices these days. And, as uncovered in photos from a recent Storage Review article, the drive is based on Fadu's FC5161 NVMe 2.0-compliant controller. The FC5161 utilizes 16 NAND channels supporting...
Western Digital Launches RX4100 Rackmount SMB Storage Server
Western Digital's Windows Storage Server based DX4000 has been very well received by SMBs. However, its desktop form factor restricted the target market. After listening to feedback from customers...
3 by Ganesh T S on 5/30/2013Western Digital Launches WD Se Hard Drive Lineup for Datacenters and High-end NAS Units
One of the most interesting launches from Western Digital last year was the WD Red line of hard drives from the client storage division. It was intended for low...
23 by Ganesh T S on 5/28/2013Western Digital and SanDisk Announce Partnership to Produce Hybrid Drives
Yesterday Western Digital and SanDisk announced their collaboration for hybrid hard drives (or SSHDs as they are now called). The idea behind the move is that SanDisk will supply...
30 by Kristian Vättö on 5/9/2013HGST/G-Technology Touro, G|Drive, and G|RAID
We met with HGST at their hotel suite and were interested to hear their plans now that they’ve been acquired by WD. Western Digital bought HGST (who had previously...
0 by Jarred Walton on 1/9/2013Hands On With Western Digital's New 5mm Hybrid Hard Drive
Remember the 5mm hybrid HDD announcement from yesterday? I just spent some time with the drive itself at the IDF Tech Showcase. The 5mm drive will be OEM-only at...
17 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 9/11/2012Western Digital Teases 5mm Hybrid Hard Drive
Intel's Ultrabook push has forced hard drive makers to do two things: take hybrid drives more seriously (because of the Ultrabook performance requirements) as well as focus on thinner...
13 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 9/10/2012Western Digital My Book VelociRaptor Duo Review
With Thunderbolt ports available on both Macs and PCs, as well as Thunderbolt controller costs dropping thanks to the introduction of Intel's Cactus Ridge, the Thunderbolt storage space is...
30 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 8/30/2012Western Digital Red Review: Are NAS-optimized HDDs Worth the Premium?
Western Digital (WD) introduced hard drives specifically targeted towards NAS systems under the Red branding last month. We had some initial coverage at launch time, where WD claimed a...
87 by Ganesh T S on 8/17/2012Western Digital Enters Router Market with My Net Series
We recently had the opportunity to take a meeting with Western Digital in San Francisco, California while a good chunk of the press were out in Taipei for Computex...
25 by Dustin Sklavos on 6/14/2012A Tale Of Two Thunderbolt Storage Devices: Seagate's GoFlex Desk and Western Digital's Thunderbolt Duo
I remember the early days of the USB-vs-FireWire wars like they were yesterday, although Wikipedia reminds me that they were more than a decade ago (sigh). USB 1.0 arrived...
46 by Brian Dipert on 5/13/2012Western Digital VelociRaptor 1TB (WD1000DHTZ) Review
There was a time when Western Digital's Raptor (and later, the VelociRaptor) was a staple of any high-end desktop build. Rotational media could only deliver better performance by increasing...
92 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 4/16/2012Western Digital To Sell Hitachi's 3.5” Hard Drive Business To Toshiba, Complete Hitachi Buyout
Almost exactly a year ago, Western Digital announced that they would be buying Hitachi’s hard drive division from Hitachi for $4.3 billion. Since then, the two companies have been...
9 by Ryan Smith on 3/6/2012Western Digital My Book Live Duo: RAIDing the My Book Live
We had reviewed the Western Digital My Book Live in detail last October and came away impressed with the functionality and mobile app support in place for the cost...
1 by Ganesh T S on 1/5/2012Seagate Awarded $525 million in Arbitration with Western Digital
Western Digital announced today in a press release that the arbitrator for a Seagate vs. Western Digital complaint sided with Seagate and ordered an award of $525 million paid...
19 by Amman Sood on 11/21/2011Thailand's flooding and our HDD needs
This holiday season might be a big one for SSD manufacturers. Like most tropical regions, Thailand experiences dry and rainy seasons, which are somewhat predicable, with the rainy season...
10 by Jason Inofuentes on 11/18/2011WD My Book Live Network Attached Hard Disk Review
The rise of powerful home networking solutions have led to the shift in consumer focus from DAS (Direct Attached Storage) units to NAS (Network Attached Storage) units in the...
28 by Ganesh T S on 10/11/2011Western Digital Introduces New WD TV Live Streaming Media Player with Spotify in Tow
Western Digital jumped on to the local media streaming bandwagon quite early in the game. With better codec compatibility and a more stable platform compared to other vendors, the...
20 by Ganesh T S on 10/6/2011Western Digital My Book Studio Edition II 6TB Review
While we await more Thunderbolt storage devices, Western Digital grabbed headlines not too long ago for the announcement of its 6TB My Book Studio Edition II Mac-ready external drive...
34 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 9/10/2011150GB & 300GB VelociRaptors Get SATA 6 Gbps, Larger Cache
While SSDs are all the rage these days, Western Digital is still making headway on their 10,000RPM VelociRaptors. The drives come in 150GB, 300GB, 450GB and 600GB capacities in...
28 by Saumitra Bhagwat on 7/28/2011Western Digital Caviar Green 3TB and My Book Essential 3TB Drives Reviewed
Two months ago I looked at the world’s first 3TB desktop hard drive. It was a 5 platter, 3TB Seagate Barracuda XT inside an external GoFlex Desk chassis. The...
48 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 10/19/2010