WD INTRODUCES FIRST THUNDERBOLT-POWERED PORTABLE DUAL-DRIVE

My Passport® Pro, Featuring Bus-Powered, User-Selectable RAID Storage in Capacities Up to 4 TB, Delivers High Speed and True Portability for Creative Pros on the Go

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 4 April 2014 – WD®, a Western Digital (NASDAQ: WDC) company, and world leader in storage solutions for the connected life, today introduced My Passport® Pro, the first portable, Thunderbolt™-powered dual-drive solution, providing creative professionals and enthusiasts high performance and capacity in a truly mobile solution. For Mac systems, My Passport Pro has user-selectable RAID functionality to deliver needed performance for the most demanding applications in the field, without the need for power adapters or extra cables. My Passport Pro is available in 2 TB and 4 TB capacities.

“The only Thunderbolt dual-drive solution that’s bus-powered, WD’s My Passport Pro enhances the workflow of mobile creative professionals by providing fast transfers and data protection for the large amounts of digital content they generate outside the studio,” said Jim Welsh, executive vice president of branded products and worldwide sales, WD. “From photographers, videographers and musicians to graphic designers and architects, people who depend on portable storage for their livelihood will find My Passport Pro defines a new level of performance, reliability and especially portability.”

     “Thunderbolt™ technology makes new approaches possible for high-performance workflows,” said Jason Ziller, Intel’s Director of Thunderbolt Marketing. “By combining dual storage drives on a portable, bus-powered device, the My Passport Pro from WD is a uniquely powerful storage solution with high capacity for today’s demanding users.”

     Directly powered via the integrated Thunderbolt cable — a design unique to WD — performance of My Passport Pro clocks in at speeds up to 233 MB/s, providing super-fast transfer, edit and backup capabilities. Another key feature of the dual-drive My Passport Pro is its user-selectable RAID function, which lets users choose data striping (RAID 0) for high performance or mirroring (RAID 1) for data redundancy, depending on the user’s needs. Superior to both FireWire 800 and USB 3.0, the integrated Thunderbolt technology of My Passport Pro makes video manipulation quick and easy—with the ability to copy a 22 GB high-definition video file in half the time typically required by a USB 3.0 drive working in RAID 0 format.

     Consisting of two 2.5-inch hard drives housed in a sleek aluminum enclosure, My Passport Pro is thoroughly shock-tested for extra durability to perform reliably when working on the go.  

Pricing and Availability
     My Passport Pro will be available immediately at select retailers and will be distributed by Amble Action Sdn Bhd and Eternal Asia Sdn Bhd in Malaysia.  Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) of My Passport Pro 2 TB is RM 999, and RM 1,399 for the 4 TB.