Western Digital 2014 Annual Report Download - page 14

Products and Solutions
We offer a broad line of storage products and solutions to meet the evolving storage needs of our end users. Our
HGST subsidiary delivers the following: high performance 10,000/15,000 revolutions per minute (“RPM”) drives
targeting server and storage system OEMs, enterprise capacity drives for bulk storage applications for both hyperscale
cloud customers and OEMs, helium sealed 6 terabyte (“TB”) products that improve capacity and other dimensions of
total cost of ownership, mobile drives for the notebook, PC and gaming markets, and a G-Technology line of branded
products for professional audiovisual users. In addition, HGST delivers a line of SSDs for the high end of the perform-
ance market that includes 2.5” Serial Attached SCSI (Small Computer System Interface) (“SAS”) drives as well as
Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (“PCIe”) SSDs for the server market and embedded flash solutions. Our
WD subsidiary designs, manufacturers and provides hard drives for a wide range of digital storage uses, from PCs and
data centers to home video recorders and home network storage devices. WD also packages these hard drives into
consumer appliances, which offer portable, desktop and personal cloud storage for accessibility from anywhere and
sharing functionality, as well as provide media playing devices to simplify enjoyment of personal content on tele-
visions.
Enterprise Storage Solutions. Enterprise storage products consist of HDDs and SSDs for performance enterprise
and capacity enterprise markets. Our enterprise storage solutions include performance drives which are optimized for
performance applications. Within performance drives, we offer large form factor drives which provide high capacity
storage, primarily for data storage systems, and small form factor drives which provide a range of capacity and
performance levels primarily for use in enterprise servers, supporting high volume on-line transactions, data analysis
and other enterprise applications. Our enterprise storage solutions also include capacity drives which provide enter-
prise class reliability at the lowest cost per GB and are primarily for use in data storage systems, in tiered storage
models and where data must be stored reliably for years. Lastly, our enterprise storage solutions include solid-state
solutions which feature fast read/write speeds in high capacities.
In fiscal 2014, our HGST subsidiary began shipping a new helium-filled HDD, which is at the forefront of
advanced technology for increasing capacity and significantly reducing total cost of ownership for enterprise and cloud
customers. This new drive allows HGST to design seven-platter drives in a standard 3.5-inch form factor at a 6TB
capacity that delivers superior total cost of ownership at the data center level by allowing significant improvements in
capacity, power, cooling and storage density. Our hard drive enterprise unit shipments were 30 million, 28 million
and 16 million for 2014, 2013 and 2012, respectively.
Through a joint development agreement with Intel Corporation to make enterprise class SAS drives and the calen-
dar 2013 acquisitions of sTec, Virident and Velobit, our HGST subsidiary has strengthened its position in the fast
growing market for enterprise class SSDs. We now offer a broad range of SSDs for the enterprise market based on the
SAS, PCIe and Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (“SATA”) interfaces.
Client: Desktop and Notebook PCs. Client compute solutions consist of HDDs for desktop and mobile PCs. Our
client compute storage solutions include HDDs designed for use in desktop PCs requiring high performance, reli-
ability and capacity with various attributes such as low cost per gigabyte (“GB”), quiet acoustics, low power con-
sumption and protection against shocks. In addition, we provide HDDs designed for use in mobile PCs and requiring
high performance, reliability and capacity with various ranges of performance and attributes such as low power con-
sumption for extended battery life and cooler operation, quiet acoustics and protection against shocks.
Our newest HDDs for mobile PCs are low-profile to address the thin and light notebook PC market, and include
ultra-slim 2.5-inch HDDs.
We also offer SATA HDDs specifically designed for home and small office network attached storage systems and
optimized for energy efficiency and reliability, as well as HDDs designed for advanced single-user computing systems
such as professional systems for video editing and CAD/CAM (computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing)
applications and high-end desktop PC applications including gaming, which require high performance and high reli-
ability. Our hard drive client compute unit shipments were 157 million, 162 million and 150 million for 2014, 2013
and 2012, respectively.
Branded Product Solutions. Our branded product solutions consist of HDDs embedded into WD®-, HGST- and
G-Technology-branded external storage appliances with capacities ranging from 500 GB to 24 TB and using interfaces
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