Monday brought rumors that Western Digital (WD) was gearing up to introduce a 3 TB hard drive, however the company made it official on Tuesday. The announcement trails behind Seagate's own 3 TB GoFlex Desk external hard drive released back in July, the first of its size to hit the market.
According to WD, the new 3 TB drive will be part of the company's My Book Essential (opens in new tab) line of external drives consisting of both dual USB 3.0/2.0 and cheaper USB 2.0-only models. The dual-interface 3.0/2.0 models will offer a choice of 3 TB, 2 TB and 1 TB capacities, whereas the USB 2.0-only models will offer capacities of 2 TB, 1.5 TB, 1 TB, 750 GB, 640 GB, and 500 GB.
Tuesday Western Digital also said it added a 500 GB USB 3.0 model to its My Passport Essential (opens in new tab) line of portable drives. Consumers can choose between five “fun” colors-- Midnight Black, Cool Silver, Real Red, Pacific Blue and Arctic White.
The company also added two USB 3.0 drives to its My Passport Essential SE (opens in new tab) line offering 750 GB and 1 TB capacities. The drives will be offered in stylish black, silver, metallic blue and metallic red colors.
WD said that all drives are formatted NTFS for Windows XP/Vista/7, and require reformatting for Mac OS X Leopard or Snow Leopard.
Pricing for the 500 GB My Passport Essential portable drive will be $99.99 USD. The My Passport Essential SE drives ranges from $129.99 USD to $169.99 USD, and the My Book Essential drives ranges from $129.99 USD to $249.99 USD. They are available now at select US retailers and through WD's online store.