torage Leader Demonstrates Next-Generation Flash Platform Technology, Delivering Unprecedented Levels of Performance, Scalability, TCO and Optimization Enabling Disaggregated Cloud Data Center Architectures

IRVINE, Calif., Dec. 6, 2016 – Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ: WDC) today unveiled innovative technology aimed at optimizing storage performance, efficiency and cost in disaggregated cloud-scale data center infrastructures. Targeting the needs of real-time applications, the advanced flash platform provides breakthrough performance that can be provisioned across multiple servers. This advanced platform leverages the company’s unique expertise in high-performance, high-capacity flash technologies to deliver unprecedented value for its customers.

At its 2016 Investor Day today, Western Digital is highlighting an all-flash storage platform that delivers 18 million input/output operations per second (IOPS) of performance. Using only 2-units (2U or 3.75-inch) of rack space, this represents the highest performance per rack unit in the industry. This performance is achieved through industry-standard NVMe SSDs connected to multiple servers over a PCIe switched fabric. The low latencies of these devices and the PCIe interconnect combine to deliver a winning combination of high performance and compact form factor. In addition to raw performance, the technology provides independent provisioning of capacity and performance, which is essential to the sharing of storage resources in a disaggregated cloud data center architecture. The platform is designed to provide the high availability and serviceability required to support business critical applications. The capabilities of this advanced platform are ideally suited for real-time and streaming analytics applications such as credit card fraud detection, video stream analysis, location-based services, advertising servers, automated systems, and solutions built on artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), or deep learning (DL).

“While the benefits of disaggregating resources, such as compute, storage, and networking for cloud-scale data centers is well understood, the fundamental building blocks will need to be more than just a collection of raw devices,” said Dave Tang, senior vice president and general manager, data center systems business unit, Western Digital. “To deliver new levels of performance, efficiency and TCO, our advanced platform enables data center operators to build more efficient systems that offer tuning of storage performance as required by their individual applications. Our expertise in performance flash and system technologies gives us unique capabilities to innovate for the future.”

The high-performance NVMe-over-PCIe fabric advanced flash platform will be available in the first half of calendar 2017. To foster standardization, the company plans to contribute software in support of this technology to the open source community.

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About Western Digital Corporation

Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ: WDC) is an industry-leading provider of storage technologies and solutions that enable people to create, leverage, experience and preserve data. The company addresses ever-changing market needs by providing a full portfolio of compelling, high-quality storage solutions with customer-focused innovation, high efficiency, flexibility and speed. Our products are marketed under the HGST, SanDisk and WD brands to OEMs, distributors, resellers, cloud infrastructure providers and consumers.

One GB is equal to one billion bytes and one TB equals 1,000 GB (one trillion bytes). One PB is equal to 1,000 TB (one quadrillion bytes). Actual capacity will vary depending on operating environment and formatting. Usable capacity will vary from the raw capacity due to object storage methodologies and other factors.

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains certain forward-looking statements, including statements concerning the development, performance and capacity, capabilities, applications, and availability of the company’s flash platform technology. There are a number of risks and uncertainties that may cause these forward-looking statements to be inaccurate including, among others: volatility in global economic conditions; business conditions and growth in the storage ecosystem; impact of competitive products and pricing; market acceptance and cost of commodity materials and specialized product components; actions by competitors; unexpected advances in competing technologies; our development and introduction of products based on new technologies and expansion into new data storage markets; risks associated with acquisitions, mergers and joint ventures; difficulties or delays in manufacturing; and other risks and uncertainties listed in the company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”), including the company’s Form 10-Q filed with the SEC on Nov. 8, 2016, to which your attention is directed. The company undertakes no obligation to update the information in this release in the event facts or circumstances change after the date of this release.