Western Digital CeBIT drive line up may suggest move to SSDs

Western Digital is a company that has been slower than most to adopt solid state technology, and though it does have some options for the flash memory storage-tech, it does still put a lot into its traditional hard drive business. That's no different at this year's CeBIT show, but the line up does suggest to our man on the scene, Leo Waldock, that WD may be preparing to move away from its bread and butter tech soon.

You wouldn't necessarily think it at first glance, as the walls of Western Digital's booths were covered in hard drives in all shapes and sizes. It features the Blue general purpose drives, the Black performance focused ones, Red NAS drives, Purple surveillance targeted models and of course the Gold enterprise drives too – though why it went with the flashiest of colours for the business users is anyone's guess.

One interesting drive of note was the 6TB Red Pro, which Leo stated has some distinct physical differences from the other drives in its range. It features three screws in a triangular pattern and features an air-hole, due to its use of WD Subsidiary HGST's internal technology.

As much as Western Digital showed a serious front with its hard drive showcasing, to Leo at least, this feels like a consolidation of its current offerings, pocketing them into distinct colour bands before transitioning more into SSD development.

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KitGuru Says: What do you think of what's on show? Is this WD's last big hurrah for hard drives? Or will it continue with the more legacy technology for sometime to come?

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