Western Digital

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

Western Digital has a long history in the electronics industry as an integrated circuit maker and a storage products company. It is one of the largest computer hard disk drive manufacturers, along with producing SSDs and flash memory devices. Its competitors include the data management and storage companies Seagate Technology and Micron Technology.

Western Digital's offerings include HDDs and SSDs for computing devices (e.g. PCs, security surveillance systems, gaming consoles and set-top boxes); NAND-flash embedded storage products for mobile devices, notebook PCs and other portable and IoT devices; and NAND flash memory wafers. Western Digital's embedded storage devices include the iNAND product line and custom embedded products. Western Digital also provides microSD and SD card products to OEMs only for automotive and industrial applications.

WD Green drives are energy efficient and are currently only available as an SSD. The WD Green HDD series was discontinued in 2015, and instead merged with WD Blue.

WD Purple hard drives are designed for write-heavy workloads; for instance, security applications (ex: recording video). These drives feature AllFrame technology, which attempts to reduce video frame loss, time limited error recovery, and support for the ATA streaming command set.

WD brand

WD Elements Portable 2TB from 2016.

Western Digital also sells external hard drives under the WD brand, with product families called My Passport, My Book, WD Elements, and Easystore. While traditionally these products have used HDDs, Western Digital has started to offer SSD versions, such as the My Passport SSD, its first portable SSD.[68] Western Digital external hard drives with encryption software (sold under the My Passport brand) have been reported to have severe data protection faults and to be easy to decrypt.

As of 2019, the WD Elements line consists of WD Elements Portable (1-5TB, 4.3 x 3.2 x 0.5 inch),[66][67] WD Elements Desktop (3-14 TB, 5.3 x 1.8 x 6.5 inch),[72] and WD Elements SE.

SanDisk

Under the SanDisk brand, Western Digital offers mobile storage products, cards and readers, USB flash drives, SSDs and MP3 players. Most of Western Digital's consumer flash memory products are offered through SanDisk. The SanDisk iXpand product family, including the iXpand Flash Drive and iXpand Base, is made specifically for use with the Apple iPhone and iPad. The 400 GB SanDisk Ultra microSDXC UHS-I card was designed primarily for use in Android smartphones that include an expansion slot.

G-Technology

Under the G-Technology brand, Western Digital offers HDD, SSD, platforms and systems products designed specifically for creative professionals. The G-Technology brand has partnerships with Apple, Atomos, and Intel.

Other products

After first offering the Western Digital Media Center in 2004 (which was actually only a storage device), Western Digital offered the WD TV series of products between 2008 and 2016. The WD TV series of products functioned as a home theater PC, able play videos, images, and music from USB drives or network locations.

Western Digital offers the My Cloud series of products, which function as home media servers.

In September 2015, Western Digital released My Cloud OS 3, a platform that enables connected HDDs to sync between PCs and mobile devices.

Through Western Digital's acquisition of Upthere, the company offers personal cloud storage through the Upthere Home app and UpOS operating system.

Western Digital sells data center hardware and software including an enterprise-class Ultrastar product line that was previously sold under the HGST brand. Current hardware products include the 20 TB CMR helium-filled HC560, the 20 TB SMR helium-filled HC650, and the 6.4 TB U.2 NVMe SN840 SSD

In November 2020, Western Digital produced a new consumer SSD, the WD Black SN850 1TB. Using a proprietary NVMe version 1.4 controller ("G2"), it is reported to outperform Samsung's 980 Pro 1TB as well as other, new-to-market SSDs containing the Phison E18 controller that arrived after the SN850 became available. The only higher-performing SSD at that time was Intel's Optane line, which is a non-consumer, workstation/server-based SSD with a cost of over five times the SN850.

In June 2021, users reported that their My Book Live NAS drives, which were discontinued products last manufactured in 2013, had been erased, leading to the company advising that the devices be disconnected from the internet.

In August 2021, Western Digital and Japanese memory-chip supplier Kioxia (formerly Toshiba Memory) began working out the details of a merger to be finalized in September 2021. In October of the same year, it became clear that the merger talks stalled.