WD(R) Ships 2 Terabyte Enterprise-Class Hard Drives With Next-Generation GreenPower(TM)...
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WD(R) Ships 2 Terabyte Enterprise-Class Hard Drives With Next-Generation
GreenPower(TM) Technology
WD RE4-GP Hard Drives Further Reduce Power Consumption For Data Centers and
Digital Video Production Facilities
LAS VEGAS, April 20 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- (NAB Show Booth No. SL12809) --
Western Digital Corp. (NYSE: WDC) today expanded its enterprise family of hard
drives to include the next-generation 2 TB capacity, the largest and only 2 TB
enterprise-class hard drive shipping today. Combining industry-leading 64 MB
cache, dual processors, and increased areal density, WD RE4-GP hard drives
yield twice the processing power resulting in as much as 25 percent
performance improvement over the previous generation.
WD's GreenPower(TM) technology platform is the first 3.5-inch hard drive
platform designed with power savings as the primary attribute. These drives
reduce average drive power consumption by up to 50 percent over currently
available competitors' drives and are ultra-cool and quiet, all while
delivering solid performance.
The new WD RE4-GP 2 TB hard drive provides enterprise-class reliability for
storage-hungry applications, such as cloud-computing infrastructure,
large-scale data centers, data archive and tape replacement systems,
commercial video surveillance and digital video editing houses, with an
energy- and money-saving solution that combats the challenges facing the
enterprise IT sector -- limited available drive slots, maximum capacity
required, and limited power and budget. Addressing the growing high-capacity
enterprise market, WD RE4-GP 2 TB drives are reliability-rated at 1.2 million
hours MTBF (mean time before failure) in high duty cycle environments.
Mission-critical video and audio content producers typically require greater
system performance and capacity needs than most other applications. Reliable
video servers, in particular, are crucial for time-critical data retrieval,
distribution, repurposing, and archiving. Like thousands of other
professionals and consumers storing photos, files and music, video
professionals must manage and maintain raw video files (or any files).
"Every data center in operation worldwide contributes to CO2 emissions, and
storage systems are at the core of these data centers," said John Rydning,
IDC's research director for hard disk drives. "Many storage applications are a
great fit for high-capacity, low power-consuming disk drives like the WD
RE4-GP 2 TB that help to reduce power consumption and positively impact the
environment."
WD(R) is making it possible for energy-conscious enterprise customers to build
servers and storage subsystems with higher capacities, consistent performance,
and assured reliability, all while promoting energy conservation.
"Energy efficiency is a primary concern for our customers who continue to look
for ways to reduce their carbon footprint without compromising reliability or
performance," said Tom McDorman, vice president and general manager of WD's
enterprise storage solutions business unit. "WD's RE-GP drives enable them to
meet their customer's system requirements for storage capacity, reliability,
performance and cost by integrating an enterprise-class drive that simply
consumes less power than traditional hard drives."
Exclusive Intelligent Drive Technology
WD RE4-GP hard drives with GreenPower technology deliver exceptional power
conservation, run ultra-cool and quiet, while providing solid performance.
Following are several technologies responsible for the performance
enhancements:
Faster - 64 MB cache, dual processors, and increased areal density yield twice
the processing power resulting in as much as a 25 percent performance
improvement over the previous generation.
Greener - Improvements in our power-conserving technologies --
IntelliSeek(TM), IntelliPark(TM), and IntelliPower(TM) -- deliver up to an
average 25 percent reduction in power consumption over our previous generation
of WD RE-GP drive.
Improved Rotary Vibration Tolerance - Advanced mechanical and servo control
optimization along with system characterization and validation enable rock
solid performance under extreme vibration conditions, with negligible impact
to performance, substantially more robust than the previous generation, making
this drive ideal for the most industrial IT applications
Active Power Management - WD drives with GreenPower technology monitor work
load and automatically invoke idle mode whenever possible to further reduce
unnecessary power consumption by up to an additional 40 percent. Drive
recovery time from idle mode is less than one second, providing seamless power
management between the drive and the host controller.
StableTrac(TM) - Secures the motor shaft at both ends to reduce system-induced
vibration and stabilize platters for accurate tracking, during read and write
operations.
RAID-specific Time-limited Error Recovery (TLER) - Pioneered by WD, this
feature prevents drive fallout caused by the extended hard drive
error-recovery processes common to desktop drives.
Rotary Acceleration Feed Forward (RAFF(TM)) - This second generation WD RE-GP
model increased rotational frequencies up to 1500 Hz, therefore optimizing
operation and performance when the drives are used in vibration-prone
multi-drive systems such as rack mounted servers or in systems deployed at
industrial type locations.
Availability and Pricing
The WD RE4-GP 2 TB hard drive (model WD2002FYPS) is available from select
e-tailers and distributors. MSRP is $329.00 (U.S.). The WD RE4-GP 2 TB will
also be shown by WD partners AMCC (booth number SL13007) and Promise (booth
number SL12008) at the NAB Show in Las Vegas, NV. More information about WD
RE4-GP enterprise drives may be found on the company's Web site at
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=670.
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 produces reliable, high-performance hard
drives that keep users' data accessible and secure from loss. WD applies its
storage expertise to consumer products for external, portable and shared
storage applications.
WD was founded in 1970. The company's storage products are marketed to leading
systems manufacturers, selected resellers and retailers under the Western
Digital(R) and WD brand names. Visit the Investor section of the company's Web
site (www.westerndigital.com) to access a variety of financial and investor
information.
Western Digital, WD, and the WD logo are registered trademarks of Western
Digital Technologies, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries; IntelliPower,
IntelliSeek, IntelliPark, StableTrac, RAFF and GreenPower are trademarks of
Western Digital Technologies, Inc. All other trademarks herein are property
of their respective owner. As used for storage capacity, one megabyte (MB) =
one million bytes, one gigabyte (GB) = one billion bytes, and one terabyte
(TB) = one trillion bytes. Total accessible capacity varies depending on
operating environment. As used for buffer or cache, one megabyte (MB) =
1,048,576 bytes.
WD RE4-GP 2 TB FAQ:
-- The WD RE4-GP 2 TB is the largest capacity enterprise hard drive on
the
market today.
-- The new WD RE4-GP 2 TB hard drive is geared for those customers who
are
seeking maximum capacity while minimizing power consumption for their
overall system requirements.
-- Designed with power savings as the primary attribute, GreenPower
drives
from WD deliver exceptional power conservation, ultra-cool, quiet
operation and solid performance.
(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20000711/WDCLOGO)
SOURCE Western Digital Corp.
Heather Skinner, Public Relations, +1-949-672-7920, heather.skinner@wdc.com,
or Bob Blair, Investor Relations, +1-949-672-7834, robert.blair@wdc.com, both
of Western Digital Corp.
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