Western Digital enters South African mobile market

01.11.2004
Von Samantha Perry

Western Digital Corp. (WD), represented in South Africa by Drive Control Corp. (DCC), last week announced its move into the mobile market at a breakfast held in Kyalami.

Western Digital Field Application Engineering Manager for EMEA, Alex Blackwell, said at the event that, according to research company TrendFOCUS, the notebook hard disc drive (HDD) market will grow at 22 percent CAGR from 2003 to 2007, while WD"s traditional market - the desktop HDD space - is only showing 8,3 percent CAGR to 2007. A further market into which WD is looking to expand its existing presence - SATA in the enterprise space - is expected to show 93,7 percent CAGR.

On its move into the notebook space, Blackwell says that the industry needs independent vendors in this space, as many vendors, for example Dell, which does not manufacture HDDs, do not like to buy HDDs from competitors, for example Toshiba, which manufactures notebooks and HDDs.

WD"s first foray into the notebook space is the Scorpio - said by WD to be a high performance, low-power, fast performing 2,5-inch hard drive for notebooks and other portable devices.

Currently shipping in volume, WD Scorpio delivers fast 5 400rpm spin speed and 12ms seek time, yet operates with power requirements comparable to 4 200rpm drives yielding lower power consumption for longer system battery life and increased long-term drive reliability, Blackwell says.

WD Scorpio mobile hard drives are offered in capacities of 40, 60 and 80GB and feature standard 2MB cache and optional 8MB cache; EIDE interface; and a three-year warranty, DCC says.

The Scorpio range is available immediately.