Western Digital Corporation

Western Digital Corporation , (often abbreviated to WD) is a manufacturer of a large proportion of the world's hard disks, and has a long history in the electronics industry as an IC maker and a storage products company. Western Digital was founded on April 23, 1970 as General Digital, initially (and briefly) a manufacturer of MOS semiconductor test equipment. It rapidly became a specialty semiconductor maker, with startup capital provided by several individual investors and industrial giant Emerson Electric. In July, 1971, they adopted their current name, had moved to Newport Beach, California, and soon after introduced their first product, the WD1402A UART.

WDC is also notable because it is the first manufacturer that, in 2001, offered mainstream ATA hard disk drives with 8 MB of cache buffer. At that time most desktop hard disk drives (HDDs) had 2 MB of buffer. WDC labeled the 8 MB models as "Special Edition" and distinguished them with the JB code (the 2 MB models had the BB code). The first 8 MB cache drive was the 100 GB WD1000JB and soon models with capacities from 40 GB to 250 GB and more followed. WDC advertised the JB models as a good choice for cost-effective file servers.