WESTERN DIGITAL ANNOUNCES NEW CAVIAR AC33100, 3-PLATTER, 3.1GB, 3.5-INCH
ENHANCED IDE DRIVE

Innovative platform design provides capacities ranging from 1GB to 3.1GB

IRVINE, CA. -- May 14, 1996 -- Western Digital Corporation (NYSE:WDC) today
announced the addition of the Caviar AC33100 (3-platter, 3.1GB) to its
family of Caviar EIDE drives. The new drive combines Western Digital s
common architecture strategy and thin film, low flying height head
technology for optimal cost/performance in the high capacity desktop
segment. The Caviar AC33100 is a member of a platform of drives with
capacities ranging from 1GB to 3.1GB.

The Caviar AC33100 has an average read seek time of sub-12ms and spindle
latency of 5.76ms to provide fast mechanical access to both cached and
uncached data. The drive supports both Mode 4 PIO (programmed
input/output) and Mode 2 DMA (direct memory access) data transfers at
speeds of up to 16.6 Megabytes per second at a rotational speed of 5200
RPM.

"In preparation for the Fall 1996 generation of Pentium platforms, the
Caviar AC33100's performance level and feature set make it a great
addition to our Caviar family," said John Burger, vice president of
marketing for Western Digital's Personal Storage Group. "With the demand
for more capacity, due to the increase in applications such as multimedia,
gaming, and on-line services, 1GB will rapidly become the minimum capacity
hard drive shipped in new PCs.

"The Caviar AC33100 is part of a new platform that can effectively provide
the necessary price/performance to all PC market segments: a 1-platter,
1GB for the entry-level commercial and emerging markets; a 2-platter,
2.1GB for consumer PCs; and 3-platter, 2.5GB and 3.1GB solutions for the
high performance PCs. With a 5200 RPM rotational speed, the Caviar AC33100
is able to outperform slower 3.5- and 5.25- inch drives and yet provide
the required cost per megabyte by using cost-effective technology."

Western Digital continues to strive for ease-of-installation in all drive
products. In keeping with this tradition, the new Western Digital drive
will ship with a unique, jumper configurable option that assures older PC
systems can easily utilize the full 3.1GB capacity without complicated
connection difficulties.

The Caviar AC33100 has the latest Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting
Technology (S.M.A.R.T.) features. S.M.A.R.T. is a technology that will
assist the user in preventing possible system down time by warning the
user of the impending risk of data loss.

Western Digital was the first to implement a 3-year warranty for PC drives,
carried on all Caviar drives. The Caviar family of drives are extensively
tested in the Company's FIT LabTM (Functional Integrity Testing Lab) to
ensure guaranteed compatibility with AT-compatible computers and standard
operating systems.

Evaluation units and volume production units of the Western Digital Caviar
AC33100 will be available in June, 1996. Estimated retail street pricing
is $549.

Western Digital Corporation is a leader in information storage management.
The company designs and manufacturers hard disk drives for personal and
enterprise-wide computing, and markets them to leading systems
manufacturers and selected resellersunder the Western Digital and Caviar
brand names. Western Digital is the first U.S.-headquartered,
multinational company to have been awarded company-wide ISO 9001
registration, linking all WD organizations with a consistent global
standard for quality processes. The company was founded in 1970 and has
long been noted for its storage and systems-level design knowledge. The
company's World Wide Web home page can be found at http://www.wdc.com or
on America Online by using the keyword Western Digital or WDC and on
Microsoft Network by using the "go" word WDC.
 
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