Lake Forest-based disk drive maker Western Digital Corp. is wading deeper into the consumer market with a line of storage devices that can be accessed anywhere in the world.
Earlier this month, Western Digital came out with a line of storage devices, dubbed My Book World Edition II, which target everyday computer users and tiny businesses,think a photographer or graphic designer.
The devices look like a phone book and offer 1 terabyte of storage for photos, music or any type of files. An earlier version with about half the storage space has been selling for about a year and has cornered about 40% of the external drive market, according to Western Digital.
My Book World pushes Western Digital further into the business of selling directly to consumers. In the December quarter, 17% of the company’s $1.4 billion in sales came from sales of My Book World and other products sold in stores. That’s up from 5% a year earlier.
Sales of drives to computer makers were 46% of sales in the quarter, down from 55% a year earlier.
The market for external drives such as My Book World is smaller but is growing faster than drives for PCs.
Last year, sales of external drives climbed 53% to $600 million, according to market researcher NPD Group Inc. of Port Washington, N.Y.
My Book World, which actually is designed to look like a book, plugs into a home router. That allows it to be accessed by any computer with Internet access, even if the home computer is off.
Once you log onto the device with a password, it shows up as a drive on your computer.
“You just double click on it as you would any other drive,” said Catherine Scott, vice president of marketing for Western Digital.
The company is casting a wide net with My Book World: “It makes it possible for a designer to access wherever their clients are,” Scott said. “Kids at school can back up their work on the home computer. If you’re traveling and take a picture, you can download it to your computer and send it home. It’s there safely before you get on the plane.”
The device comes with Western Digital’s Anywhere Access and Data OnHand software, which allows users thousands of miles from home to edit and store documents directly on the drive.
Scott said she saved photos from a recent vacation to the Galapagos Islands using My Book.
“With the growth of digital photography and digital music, people become more aware of the need to back up files,” she said.
The twin-drive My Book costs $500.
Industrial design studio Ideo of Palo Alto worked on the look of the drive, which has an Apple-like design to it.
“We decided people really care about aesthetics and how they look on a desk,” Scott said.
My Book goes a long way in making an external drive more attractive, said NPD analyst Stephen Baker.
“There has been a huge increase in demand for those devices, especially in the past three or four years,” he said.
Maxtor Inc., which was bought by key Western Digital rival Seagate Technology of Scotts Valley last year, had been the leader in external drives.
The competition for external drives is heightened with Maxtor joining Seagate, according to Baker.
