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High-capacity 6 GB 1-inch Hard Drives to Ship in Second Calendar Quarter of 2005 - Serving a rapidly expanding base of customers for mass storage, Western Digital Corp. (NYSE: WDC) announced today that the company will enter the market for miniature hard drives with a family of 1-inch drives that enable a variety of handheld consumer devices, which are experiencing explosive demand.

An increasing number of current applications, such as MP3 players, PDAs, digital still cameras and digital video cameras, rely on 1-inch hard drives. Newly available and future products enabled by innovations in rotating magnetic storage, such as 1-inch drives, have driven demand in the quickly developing market segment that includes combination digital video/still cameras and cell phones.

"The sub-2.5-inch markets, mostly driven by massive demand for MP3 players and, in the future, by multi-function mobile phones, will be the most explosive growth areas for hard drives," said John Monroe, a research vice president at Gartner. "We are witnessing a global cultural revolution in portable digital entertainment. Hard-drive enabled MP3 players are already becoming ubiquitous, and by 2008, at least 8 percent of mobile phones could contain a hard drive. These are enormous new markets. It now seems likely that 1-inch hard drive shipments exceeded 8 million units in 2004, up from only 903,000 units in 2003. The compound annual growth rate for 1-inch hard drives should exceed 85 percent through 2008."

WD's miniature drive entry is expected to ship in the second calendar quarter of 2005. The 1-inch hard drive will spin at 3,600 RPM and will be available in capacities up to 6 GB. This new hard drive will be offered with the standard CF II interface and form factor, which enables it to fit into the millions of currently available devices accepting CF II cards, as well as easily integrate into future products. It will feature WD's anti-skip technology that supports uninterrupted audio and video playback. The drive also will incorporate WD's patent-pending advanced power management techniques to enable the longest possible battery life.

"WD's entry into the sub-2.5-inch segment is in response to customer demand and broadens our market position, enabling WD to participate in an incremental revenue opportunity and profit pool," said Tom McDorman, vice president and general manager of WD's entertainment group. "Sub-2.5-inch hard drives represent another market that demands high volume and predictable supply of highly reliable, high quality products. With our reputation for best-in-class quality, operating model and manufacturing efficiencies, WD is ready to meet the needs of existing and new customers in this market segment."

For more information about WD's 1-inch hard drive, please visit http://www.wdc.com/oneinch.

About WD

WD, one of the storage industry's pioneers and long-time leaders, provides products and services for people and organizations that collect, manage and use digital information. The company's core business produces reliable, high-performance hard drives that keep users' data close-at-hand and secure from loss.

WD was founded in 1970. The company's storage products are marketed to leading systems manufacturers and selected resellers under Western Digital and WD brand names. Visit the Investor section of the company's Web site (www.westerndigital.com) to access a variety of financial and investor information.

This release may contain forward-looking statements, including statements relating to WD entering the market for 1-inch hard drives, expected ship dates, integration into future products, expected sub-2.5-inch market growth rates, forecasted unit shipments of sub-2.5-inch hard drives and expected revenue opportunities. These forward-looking statements are based on current management expectations, and actual results may differ materially as a result of several factors, including: market demand for hard drives, uncertainties related to the development and introduction of products based on new technologies, difficulties faced in manufacturing ramp, pricing, competition, the significant uncertainty of market acceptance of new products, overall economic conditions and other factors discussed in Western Digital's recent SEC filings. Western Digital undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements, whether to reflect information, events or circumstances occurring after the date of the statements or otherwise.


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Western Digital is a registered trademark; WD and the WD logo are trademarks of Western Digital Technologies, Inc. Other marks may be mentioned herein that belong to other companies. All other brand and product names mentioned herein are the property of their respective companies.

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