Western Digital is one of the biggest hard drive manufacturers in the world. Based in the USA and started in the 1970’s, Western Digital produced their first hard drives in mid 1980’s. Western Digital produce a wide range of hard drive products including desktop hard drives, laptop hard drives, solid state drives (SSD), external hard drives and other network and media storage devices.

They have a wide range of desktop 3.5″ hard drives which are colour coded. A basic rundown of these is as follows:

WD Blue: General use, all purpose drive. 5,400 to 7,200 RPM drives available in capacities from 500GB up to 6TB. Usually a good fit for a basic desktop computer.

WD Green: Seems to have merged with the Blue range. A low power, low performance storage hard drive.

WD Black: High performance drive with a longer warranty. Better build all round in terms of performance and reliability, 7,200 RPM across the range. 500GB up to 6TB in capacity.

WD Red: Designed to be used in a NAS environment, more emphasis on read speeds than write speeds. Supposedly durable with a long life span. 1TB to 8TB at 5,400 RPM to 7,200 RPM if going for the Pro model.

WD Purple: A drive designed for surveillance systems. It’s intended use if for recording video, so an emphasis on write speed and 24/7 operation. 1TB to 8TB at 5,400RPM.

Their laptop range of hard drives are similar to the desktop range, but with only 2 colours. The Black hard drives having better performance and a longer warranty period over the Blue.

Western Digital is possibly most famous for their external and portable hard drives. These come in various different models such as the Passport, Elements, My Book, etc. We have recovered an endless amount of these drives as they are very popular and tend to fail regularly. Have a look at what a standard Western Digital data recovery process looks like.

Hard drive data recovery relating to Western Digital hard drives includes:

• Logical data recovery involving repair of the file system stored on the hard drive, damaged by virus attacks, user error or hardware failure.
• Electrical data recovery involving repair or replacement of the main electrical components (PCB), damaged by static, bad power or surges, or user damage.
• Physical data recovery involving repair or replacement of the mechanical components within the hard drive internals. This includes replacement of the head stack assembly (HSA), motor spindle, or any other parts requiring repair or replacement. Damage to these components is often by wear and tear, manufacturing defects or user damage such as a drop or fall.