Western Digital Launches PiDrive: A 314GB Storage Device For Raspberry Pi

In case you didn’t notice, today is Pi day. To mark this occasion hard drive manufacturer Western Digital have unveiled the PiDrive. PiDrive is storage device designed to work with Raspberry Pi. The storage space on the PiDrive also commemorates this day as it has 314GB of storage. So why has Western Digital made this product? For starters there is the growing community of Raspberry Pi adopters across the world. The second reason is most Raspberry Pi users find it hard to use huge amounts of storage on their Raspberry Pi. They currently have three choices, microSD cards, USB hard drives and cloud storage. The problem with microSD card storage is that although they might be cheap, they come with limited storage. Portable USB hard drives have the opposite problem, although they provide tons of storage they are expensive and as compared to the Raspberry Pi itself they are cumbersome to use. Finally there is cloud storage which is ineffective if you are stuck with slow internet connection.


Western Digital has based the PiDrive on the high-volume WD Blue slim drive 500GB platform. They have made a couple of changes to in the PiDrive such as the drive's magnetic recording and electrical system to make sure that there is no extra electrical power load on the Raspberry Pi while ensuring that the performance remains top notch. The team from Western Digital have also collaborated with the makers of BerryBoot to create a special version of BerryBoot for the PiDrive. BerryBoot is a free software solution that enables Raspberry Pi users to load multiple software applications with ease. The BerryBoot includes software applications featuring the use of mass-storage devices with Raspberry Pi. You can select the OS from the BerryBoot menu and launch it instantaneously.

The PiDrive which is a native USB 7mm HDD is on the expensive side. While the regular price of the PiDrive is $45 you can buy one now at a reduced price of $31. Since the PiDrive costs more than the Raspberry Pi itself you need to be a serious tinkerer to buy one.

Source: Western Digital Offers Growing Raspberry Pi Community New 314GB Drive via #-Link-Snipped-#