HGST GIVES CONSUMERS THE INDUSTRY’S FIRST 1TB, 7200 RPM, 2.5-INCH MOBILE HARD DRIVE

HGST GIVES CONSUMERS THE INDUSTRY’S FIRST 1TB, 7200 RPM,
2.5-INCH MOBILE HARD DRIVE

HGST Hard Drive Retail Kit and the Touro™ Mobile Pro External Storage Solution Now Feature the New Travelstar™ Hard Drive for High Speed and Massive Capacity

International Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2013), Las Vegas, January 7, 2013 – HGST (formerly Hitachi Global Storage Technologies and now a Western Digital company, NASDAQ: WDC) today announced that it’s shipping the industry’s first 1TB, 9.5mm, 2.5-inch, 7,200 RPM hard disk drive (HDD). The new Travelstar HDD is available in the HGST Hard Drive Retail Kit as well as in the award-winning Touro Mobile Pro USB 3.0 external storage solution for simple add-on storage and backup.

HGST Hard Drive Retail Kit

The new Travelstar™ 1TB, 2.5-inch 7,200 RPM hard drive is ideally suited for upgrading notebooks, game consoles, and other high-capacity, high-performance personal storage products. This standard 9.5mm drive leverages Advanced Format, which increases the physical sector size from 512 bytes to 4,096 (4K) bytes to improve drive capacities and error correction capabilities. With 7,200 RPM performance, 32MB cache buffer and a 6Gb/SATA interface, the drive delivers the highest 7,200 RPM mobile HDD performance in PCMark® Vantage benchmark testing, which results in faster downloads and better application performance than 7,200 and 5,400 RPM 2.5-inch HDDs. Other highlights include proven sixth-generation HDD technology, 1TB capacity, the industry’s highest shock tolerance, a halogen-free design for an eco-friendly footprint, and low power consumption for sturdy unplugged notebook performance.

The 1TB, 2.5-inch, 7200RPM HGST Travelstar Hard Drive Retail Kit comes complete with step-by-step instructions that allows Microsoft®, Apple® and Linux® systems to tap into the full capacity, power and performance of the 1TB drive. Available in Q1, the 1TB, 2.5-inch, 7200RPM HGST Hard Drive Retail Kit will have an MSRP of £89.99.

Touro Mobile Pro External Storage Solution

Both Mac® and PC compatible, the Touro Mobile Pro portable external storage solution provides plug-and-play simplicity and a fast USB 3.0 interface and features a smooth black, textured body for solid good looks. Placed vertically or horizontally, or even stacked, the Touro Mobile Pro fits perfectly into any home or office environment. Housing the new HGST Travelstar hard drive, the new 1TB, 7200RPM-based Touro Mobile Pro offers high-performance and massive storage capacity for storing hours of high-definition videos, thousands of photos, songs and movies, and tons of video games with room to spare. In addition to increased local storage, the Touro Mobile Pro solution provides two levels of protection with 3GB of free cloud storage from TouroCloudBackup.com. With local and cloud backup, photos, movies, music and documents are not only safe but available anytime, anywhere from any smartphone or web browser. The 1TB Touro Mobile Pro solution is shipping today with a MSRP of £99.99.

“Computers may come and go, but your personal data remains and continues to grow exponentially, which is why you need reliable storage solutions to help store, preserve, and manage your most valued data,” said Mike Williams, vice president and general manager, HGST Branded Business. “By including the new HGST Travelstar drive in our Touro Mobile Pro and HGST Retail Hard Drive Kit, we continue to give consumers multiple storage options with the best performance, capacity and reliability for their digital lives.”

About HGST

HGST (formerly known as Hitachi Global Storage Technologies or Hitachi GST), a Western Digital company (NASDAQ: WDC), develops advanced hard disk drives, enterprise-class solid state drives, innovative external storage solutions and services used to store, preserve and manage the world’s most valued data. Founded by the pioneers of hard drives, HGST provides high-value storage for a broad range of market segments, including Enterprise, Desktop, Mobile Computing, Consumer Electronics and Personal Storage. HGST was established in 2003 and maintains its U.S. headquarters in San Jose, California. For more information, please visit the company’s website at www.hgst.com.

One GB is equal to one billion bytes, and one TB equals 1,000 GB (one trillion bytes). Actual capacity will vary depending on operating environment and formatting.

HGST external hard drives serve as an element of an overall backup strategy. It is recommended that users keep two or more copies of their most important files backed up or stored on separate devices or online services.

Travelstar and Touro are registered trademarks of HGST, a Western Digital Company. Western Digital, WD, and the WD logo are registered trademarks of Western Digital Technologies, Inc. All other trademarks are properties of their respective owners.