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Western Digital

WESTERN DIGITAL HOSTS WD_BLACK CUP Season 4

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Western Digital is hosting the WD_BLACK Cup Season 4, pitting some of the top gamers in India against each other in the new edition of the sought-after esports tournament. The WD_BLACK Cup aims to empower gamers and esports enthusiasts across India by offering them a platform to display their expertise, test their skills and learn new gaming techniques. The Cup also rewards the winners handsomely, with a total prize pool of about INR 13 lakhs. 

The tournament brings together PC and mobile professional esports athletes, popular streamers, and gaming content creators. This season kicked off on the 1st of this month and has NVIDIA and Amazon as sponsors.  

Commenting on the tournament Mr. Jaganathan Chelliah, Senior Director – Marketing, India, Middle East & TIA, Western Digital, said, “WD_BLACK Cup has become a hugely popular esports event in India which many gamers look forward to participating in. Through this initiative, we endeavor to promote esports by nurturing and recognizing gaming talent in the country.”

As per reports, the Indian esports market is expected to grow at 46% CAGR to grow over fourfold from INR 2.5 billion in 2021 to INR 11 billion by 20251. Western Digital is playing a pivotal role by working with various stakeholders in the ecosystem to promote professional gaming and esports in India. The WD_BLACK Cup is among the many initiatives by the company for helping the gaming ecosystem develop and mature rapidly.  

One of the key highlights of the WD_BLACK Cup season 4 is the LAN-based physical event as the grand finale on the 18th of February at Delhi’s Pragati Maidan. It will be held at the India Gaming Show (IGS).

Level Up Your Game with New Western Digital NVMe SSDs

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Western Digital has released its latest addition to the WD_Black portfolio, the WD_Black SN770 NVMe SSD. The new drive fuels gaming PC rigs with faster speeds and longer gameplay, offering up to 40 percent faster performance and up to 20 percent more power efficiency at maximum speed over the previous generation.

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The WD_Black SN770 NVMe SSD features a PCIe Gen4 interface that delivers ultra-fast read speeds of up to 5,150MB/s (1TB and 2TB models only) to fuel in-game responsiveness, minimise stutter, and provide smooth streaming for a performance boost that gamers can see and feel. The drive is an accessible option for gamers looking to transition to Gen4 while also being backwards compatible for those with Gen3 systems. Purpose-built for PC gaming, it is an ideal solution for enthusiast PC builders and long-time gamers looking to elevate their gaming experience.

Khalid Wani, Senior Director – Sales, India, Western Digital, said, “Our WD_Black portfolio provides a variety of innovative, high-performance solutions that are purpose-built for every type of gamer, at every level. Today we have introduced SN770 NVMe SSD, which is designed for PC gaming with blazing fast speeds and additional storage for quick game load times, smooth streaming, and minimal in-game stutter.”

“As more gamers look to make the transition to PCIe Gen4 systems, we believe it is important for the PC gaming community to have a variety of reliable, high-performing solutions to level up their gaming rigs,” said Jaganathan Chelliah, Senior Director – Marketing, India and Middle East and Africa, Western Digital. “The new WD_Black SN770 NVMe SSD makes Gen4 technology more accessible, helping more gamers get into the game faster and improve their overall gaming experience.” He added.

The WD_Black SN770 NVMe SSD is available in capacities ranging from 250GB up to 2TB, starting at an SRP of ₹4,749.

Western Digital hosts second edition of the WD_BLACK Cup Esports Tournament for gamers across South Asia

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Earlier this year, Western Digital (WD) hosted the first edition of the WD_Black Cup in India, and now, WD is ack with Season 2 of the esports tournament, in association with AMD Ryzen. This 19-day long gaming marathon – WD_Black Cup Season 2.

This season, the tournament will have a prize pool of $20,000, a longer duration, and there is one more game added to the tournament. The WD_Black Cup S2 will feature some of the most seasoned gaming influencers and esports players as they battle for top honours across 3 tracks:

  • WD_Black Cup Open Qualifiers featuring Valorant and League of Legends, and
  • The Invitational track featuring Battlegrounds Mobile India

This tournament will be held across India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Maldives, with an expected viewership of over 8 million. The tournament began on November 20th with the first track, WD_Black Cup S2 Valorant Qualifiers, open to 200 teams. This track was spread across 9 days and will be broadcasted live with single elimination open qualifiers filtered down to top 8 teams, with the total prize pool being $10,000.

The second track, WD_Black Cup S2 League of Legends open commenced from 6th December with qualifiers, and the play-offs started from 10th December with the final being held tomorrow, December 15th, which will also be streamed live on the Skyesports WD Black Cup S2 streaming channel. This track featured 32 teams.

The third track, BGMI Invitational track, was a 4-day long marathon that ran from 6-9th December, and it hosted 18 teams, featuring a few top influencers from India, including Soul Esports and Godlike, with the prize pool being of $7,000.

“The inclusion of esports in the medals category at the Asian games is attracting a lot of young talent to gaming in India. Western Digital is enabling gamers to be battle-ready with or by using our innovative WD_BLACK range of gaming SSDs. The WD_BLACK Cup is our flagship gaming tournament designed to motivate, recognize and reward these budding gamers in India and South Asia, and we are thrilled to have AMD as our partner in this exciting initiative”, said Mr. Jaganathan Chelliah, Senior Director, India, ME &Africa, Western Digital.

For more information, please visit this page.

Western Digital unveils redesigned hard disks

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Western Digital updated its existing My Passport and My Book range with the introduction of refreshed models compatible with USB 3.0 and Apple Time Machine.

My Passport portable drives come in a reimagined design with a textured bottom that fits in the palm of the hand. They come in 4 colours – Black, Red, White and Blue. It is available in 1TB, 2TB and 4TB capacities. My Book supports upto 8TB capacity. Both drives come with Password protection with 256-bit AES hardware encryption and automatic backup with included WD Backup software.

My Book (3TB) is priced at Rs.13,050 while My Passport (1TB) costs Rs.7,980. Both drives come with a 2 year limited warranty and are available at select retailers and distributors across the country.

Western Digital My Cloud EX2Ultra is now available in India

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Storage specialist Western Digital has launched the My Cloud EX2 Ultra (Network Attached Storage) NAS system for Indian consumers. The product is specially marketed to creative professionals who require multiple backups as well as the need to share files and folders across multiple computers.

The device is powered by a 1.3GHZ dual-core processor and 1GB DRR3 RAM to aid in better performance and multitasking. It includes data management and security features allowing users to manage as well as protect their data. Data protection options include NAS to NAS, USB, Cloud or LAN/WAN backup while drive management options include RAID 0, RAID 1, JBOD.

Upto 16TB hard disk capacity can be added to the base model. The USB expansion ports on the side provide compatibility with USB 3.0 hard drives. Integrated P2P download server, backup server, Microsoft Active Directory FTP and WebDAV server are also supported.

The My Cloud EX2Ultra (minus storage) is available at retail stores across the country at a price of Rs. 17,499 while the 4TB version sells for Rs. 35,499.