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Western Digital Delivers Fastest Serial ATA Hard Drives

Western Digital Corp announced that the Company's Enterprise Serial ATA WD Raptor hard drives are available now in retail stores and at its online store at store.westerndigital.com. In addition to a WD Raptor hard drive, the retail kit includes a Serial ATA (SATA) interface host adapter from SIIG, a SATA interface cable and Quick Install Guide. This retail kit brings enterprise-class reliability and speed to those end users who prefer premium components for their state-of-the-art computer systems.

WD Raptor Enterprise SATA hard drives, which were introduced earlier this year for business applications, are the world's fastest Serial ATA drives and feature specifications of: 10,000 RPM; 5.2 milliseconds (ms) average seek time; 1.2 million hours MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure); and five-year warranty.

"We have received a groundswell of interest from those upper-end users who seek the very best in computing equipment," said Richard Rutledge, vice president of marketing for Western Digital. "The class of end-users who has traditionally embraced enterprise-class SCSI hard drives for their computing systems is now turning to Serial ATA for its increased performance and reliability. This new interface is designed for power users who enjoy video editing, digital audio applications or high-end gaming and want to push their overall system performance to its limits."

Availability and Pricing

Western Digital's Enterprise Serial ATA WD Raptor hard drives are available at the Company's online store ( store.westerndigital.com/product.asp?sku=2328189), retail stores including Best Buy, CompUSA, Fry's, Micro Center and through other select retailers.

Manufacturer's suggested retail pricing for Western Digital's Enterprise SATA WD Raptor 36 GB hard drives is $249. Complete retail kit includes WD Raptor hard drive; Serial ATA interface cable; SIIG SATA host adapter; and Quick Install Guide. WD Raptor hard drive products carry a five-year warranty.

System Requirements

WD Raptor hard drives are compatible with any computer with an available 32-bit PCI 2.1 or 2.2 compliant PCI slot and 3.5-inch or 5.25-inch internal drive bay using Windows 2000 or Windows XP.