() (often abbreviated to '''WD''') is a manufacturer of a large proportion of the world's
Hard Disk s, and has a long history in the electronics industry as an
IC maker and a storage products company. Western Digital was founded on
April 23 ,
1970 as '''General Digital''', initially (and briefly) a manufacturer of MOS semiconductor test equipment. It rapidly became a specialty
Semiconductor maker, with startup capital provided by several individual investors and industrial giant
Emerson Electric . In July,
1971 , they adopted their current name, had moved to
Newport Beach ,
California , and soon after introduced their first product, the ''WD1402A''
UART . Western Digital is currently the second largest hard drive company.
Through the early years of the 1970s, WDC made their money by selling
Calculator chips; by 1975, they were the largest independent calculator chip maker in the world. The oil crisis of the mid-1970s and the bankruptcy of its biggest calculator customer, Bowmar Instrument, changed its fortunes, however. In 1976, Western Digital declared
Chapter 11 bankruptcy. After this, Emerson withdrew their support of the company, and WDC was on its own.
WDC introduced several landmark products during this time, including the ''
MCP-1600 '' multi-chip,
Microcode d
CPU (used, among other things, to implement
DEC 's
LSI-11 system and their own
Pascal MicroEngine microcomputer which ran the
UCSD P-System Version III and
UCSD Pascal ), and a string of single-chip
Floppy Disk drive controller chips, notably the ''
WD1771 ''.
The WD1771 and its kin were WDC's first entry into the data storage industry; by the early
1980s , they were making
Hard Disk controllers, and in 1983, they won the contract to provide
IBM with controllers for the
PC/AT . That controller, the ''WD1003'', became the basis of the
ATA interface (which WDC developed along with
Compaq and
Control Data 's MPI division, now owned by
Seagate ) starting in 1986.
In the mid-to-late 1980s, WDC also dabbled in
Graphics Card s (through their subsidiary, purchased 1986),
Core Logic chipsets (by purchasing Faraday Electronics Inc. in 1987), and networking (''WD8003'', ''WD8013'' and ''WD8003S''
StarLAN ). They did well (especially Paradise, which produced one of the best
VGA cards of the era), but storage-related chips and disk controllers were their biggest moneymakers. In 1986, they introduced the ''WD33C93'' single-chip
SCSI interface, which was used in the first 16-bit
Bus Mastering SCSI controller, the ''WD7000 "FASST"''; in 1987 they introduced the ''WD37C65'', a single-chip implementation of the PC/AT's floppy disk controller circuitry, and the grandfather of modern
Super I/O chips; in 1988 they introduced the ''WD42C22 "Vanilla"'', the first single-chip ATA hard disk controller.
1988 also brought what would be the biggest change in WDC's history. That year, WDC bought the hard drive production assets of PC hardware maker
Tandon ; the first products of that union under WDC's own name were the "Centaur" series of ATA and
XT Attachment drives.
By 1991, things were starting to slow down, as the PC industry moved from
ST-506 and
ESDI drives to ATA and SCSI, and thus were buying fewer hard disk controller boards. That year saw the rise of WDC's drives, brand new designs that used the latest in
Embedded Servo and computerized diagnostic systems.
Eventually, Caviar drives were selling so well that WDC started to dispose of its other divisions. Paradise was sold to
Philips (it has since disappeared), their networking and floppy drive controller divisions went to
SMC Networks , and their SCSI chip business went to market leader
Adaptec . Around 1995 the technological lead that the Caviar drives had enjoyed was eclipsed by newer offerings from other companies, especially
Quantum , and WDC fell into a slump.
Products and ideas of this time didn't go far; the ''Portfolio'' drive (a 3-inch
Form Factor model, developed with
JT Storage ) was a flop, as was the
SDX hard disk to
CD-ROM interface. WDC's drives started to slip further behind products by other makers, and quality began to suffer;
System Builders and PC enthusiasts who used to recommend WDC above all else were going to the competition, particularly
Maxtor , whose products had improved significantly by the late 1990s.
To attempt to
Turn The Tide , in 1998, WDC recruited the help of
IBM . This agreement gave WDC the rights to use certain IBM technologies, including
Giant Magneto-resistive (GMR) heads, and access to IBM production facilities. The result was the line of drives, introduced in early 1999. The idea worked, and WDC regained much respect in the press and among users, even despite a recall in 2000 (which was due to bad motor driver chips). WDC has since broken ties to IBM.
The latest video cards from WD were a ''Pipeline 64'' graphics media accelerator card (WD9710 Rocketchip) and ''Tasmania 3D'' PCI 3D video accelerator (based on the Yamaha YGV612 Rendering Polygon Accelerator). At 1996 Paradise Graphics subsidiary was sold to
Philips Semiconductors which reestablised ''Paradise'' name.
WDC is also notable because it is the first manufacturer which, in 2001, offered mainstream ATA hard disk drives with 8
MB of
Cache Buffer . At that time most desktop hard disk drives (HDDs) had 2 MB of buffer. WDC labeled the 8 MB models as ''"Special Edition"'' and distinguished them with the code (the 2 MB models had the '''BB''' code). The first 8 MB cache drive was the 100
GB WD1000JB and soon models with capacities from 40 GB to 250 GB and more followed. WDC advertised the JB models as a good choice for cost-effective
File Server s.
In 2003, WD acquired most of the assets of bankrupt hard drive one-time market leading magnetic read-write head developer " with a capacity of 36 GB and an average access time of less than 6 milliseconds. Soon, the 74 GB WD740GD, which is also much quieter, followed and in
2005 Western Digital released the 150 GB version, the WD1500. As of 2004 the "Raptor" drives have 5 years of warranty, making them a more attractive choice for inexpensive
Storage Server s, where a large number of drives in constant use increases the likelihood of a drive failure. In
2006 , Western Digital introduced its MyBook line of mass market external hard drives that feature a clever, compact book-like design. By the end of 2006 Western digital had introduced a 1 TB (1000 GB) version - the largest in its MyBook range, consisting of two 500 GB drives in a single enclosure.
Recently, WD sells many hard drives with a warranty of three years included in the retail price, but they offer the customer the option of purchasing a longer (two- or three-year) warranty on their web site.
Western Digital were responsible for a number of innovations, including
- – WD1402A, the first single-chip UART
- – WD1771, the first single-chip floppy disk controller
- – WD1010, the first single-chip ST-506 controller
- – WD1003 hard disk controller, predecessor to ATA
- – Co-developed ATA with Compaq and Control Data
- – WD33C93, one of the first SCSI interface chips
- – WD7000, first bus-mastering ISA SCSI controller
- – WD37C65, first single-chip PC/AT-compatible floppy disk controller
- – WD42C22, first single-chip ATA hard disk controller
- – Caviar drives introduced
- – the first mass market IDE drive with an 8MB buffer
- – the first SATA drive running at 10,000 rpm
- – Media Center , the first flash memory media reader combined with a hard drive
- – the first hard disk drive with a clear window in the cover12
- – First manufacturer of a 250 GB laptop drive,3 third manufacturer to break the 750 GB mark on desktop drives.4
