Just a few weeks back the Raspberry Pi foundation announced the latest generation of its popular microcomputer. Today, Western Digital is detailing a new internal hard drive add-on for the DIY motherboard. SD cards have long been the accepted medium for adding storage to Raspberry Pi but are limited in size. Now, hobbyists will have a new option that adds a robust 314GB of storage…
The beauty of Raspberry Pi is its slim design and ease of use. Unfortunately, there isn’t much in the way of power supplies for external add-ons. That means that USB thumb drives are generally out of the question. While SD cards are an option, adding significant amounts of storage can be a struggle.
That’s where WD comes in. The new PiDrive has a slim design that won’t overwhelm the power supply or bulk up the motherboard. WD worked with the Raspberry Pi foundation on a build that allows the hard drive to run efficiently without concerns over short circuiting the system.
New users will be able to load up software with BerryBoot. Given that most applications for Raspberry Pi are small in size due to storage constraints, this will open up a whole new world for developers.
The WD PiDrive is listed at $45.81 but will have a launch day discount for Pi Day down to $31.42. It is currently available in the WD store and is expected to be available at Amazon shortly.
[9to5-press-release]
Western Digital Offers Growing Raspberry Pi Community New 314GB Drive
IRVINE, Calif., March 14, 2016 /PRNewswire/ — WDLabs™, a business growth incubator of storage solutions leader Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ: WDC), today announced availability of the WD PiDrive 314GB, a storage device engineered to serve the Raspberry Pi® community with low-power USB operation, affordability, reliability and ease of integration.
“Adoption of Raspberry Pi computing devices is expanding at a tremendous rate, reaching eight million units in about four years1. However, the millions of Raspberry Pi users are finding limitations from data storage devices (SD card, USB hard drive or cloud storage) originally designed for other applications,” said Dave Chew, chief engineer, WDLabs. “The WD PiDrive 314 GB HDD is designed to support Raspberry Pi growth by addressing barriers to hard drive adoption such as affordability, power loading and system set-up. In addition, we’ve maintained the key strengths of hard drive technology, including mass-storage value, high data integrity and reliability.”
“With the extended capabilities of Raspberry Pi 3, we can’t wait to see what new projects our community comes up with,” said Eben Upton, chief executive officer, Raspberry Pi. “WD PiDrive 314GB gives our members a low-cost, purpose built hard drive solution that helps them develop even more innovative and unique ways to use Raspberry Pi.”
“The innovative work being done in the Raspberry Pi community is extraordinary and we applaud participants,” said Melyssa Banda, head of worldwide marketing communications, WD. “That work has inspired problem-solving engineering through our WDLabs group and, with their insight and collaboration, we are focused on taking new solutions to market. The WD PiDrive 314GB is a great example of real-world innovation from WDLabs.”
Engineered for Raspberry Pi
The WD PiDrive 314GB device is based on Western Digital’s proven, high-volume 500GB platform with design changes made specifically for Raspberry Pi. Customizations made to the drive’s magnetic recording and electrical system operating set-points align with Raspberry Pi’s USB data and power design to reduce the electrical power load of the hard drive on Raspberry Pi, while still maintaining sufficient performance to deliver maximum USB data transfer rate. Platform design flexibility and the manufacturing tuning process enabled WDLabs to create this specialized product for Raspberry Pi efficiently without compromising quality and reliability.
Unique Software Solution for New Users
WDLabs and the author of BerryBoot, a highly regarded, well-established and free software solution that simplifies the loading of multiple software applications, have created a special version of BerryBoot for WD PiDrive device customers, which includes software applications featuring the use of mass-storage devices with Raspberry Pi. Many operating systems and software applications can be stored on the WD PiDrive HDD, taking full advantage of the 314GB of storage. Upon system boot-up, the OS can be selected from the BerryBoot menu and launched with a couple of mouse clicks.
Compatibility, Price and Availability
Designed for Raspberry Pi, the WD PiDrive 314GB HDD is compatible with all WD PiDrive cables, cable kits and WD PiDrive enclosures. Manufacturer Suggested Retail Price is $45.81 USD with a limited-time discount of 31.4 percent for a net price of $31.42 USD. The WD PiDrive 314GB HDD comes with a two-year limited warranty and, along with WD PiDrive accessories, is currently available online at the WD Store.
About Western Digital
Founded in 1970, Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ: WDC), Irvine, Calif., is an industry-leading developer and manufacturer of storage solutions that enable people to create, manage, experience and preserve digital content. It is a long-time innovator in the storage industry. Western Digital Corporation is responding to changing market needs by providing a full portfolio of compelling, high-quality storage products with effective technology deployment, high efficiency, flexibility and speed. Its products are marketed under the HGST and WD brands to OEMs, distributors, resellers, cloud infrastructure providers and consumers. Financial and investor information is available on the company’s Investor Relations website at investor.wdc.com.
Western Digital and WD are registered trademarks and WDLabs is a trademark of Western Digital Technologies, Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. Raspberry Pi is a trademark of the Raspberry Pi Foundation. All other marks that may be mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners. As used for storage capacity, one terabyte (TB) = one trillion bytes, and one gigabyte (GB) = one billion bytes. Total accessible capacity varies depending on operating environment. Product specifications subject to change without notice. Not all products are available in all regions of the world.
[/9to5-press-release]
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