WDLabs, an internal team of developers of storage solutions in Western Digital, today announced availability of the WD PiDrive Foundation Edition products, which combine microSD card and USB drive functionality with operating system installation software designed for the Raspberry Pi community. "It is similar to about 30 years ago when hard disk drives went mainstream in PCs - no more swapping floppy disks in and out to load the OS, applications and data," said Dave Chew, chief engineer, WDLabs. "This third generation WD PiDrive solution uses a USB HDD or USB Flash drive to run the OS and host multiple Raspberry Pi projects instead of having to do this on a collection of microSD cards. We have combined our technologies to work as a team."

Custom software, based on the Raspberry Pi Foundation’s Raspbian OS and NOOBS OS installer, is included with the new system and provides easy installation of OSes on the USB drive. The large capacity of the drive enables an exclusive 'Project Spaces' feature, which allows installation of multiple instances of the core OS, creating independent spaces for project creation or support for multiple users with isolated work spaces.

The WD PiDrive Foundation Edition device is offered in three capacity versions: a 375GB disk drive, a 250GB disk drive and a 64GB flash drive. The 375GB and 250GB products include a WD PiDrive cable that ensures optimal powering of the hard drive and Raspberry Pi. All versions include a microSD card preloaded with the custom NOOBS OS installer. Raspberry Pi’s official OS, Raspbian PIXEL, can be installed directly from the microSD card (no Internet connection required), in addition to up to five Project Spaces, depending on capacity available. Raspbian PIXEL provides a familiar desktop environment and includes a web browser, productivity applications, programming tools, games and other features typically provided on desktop computers. Project Spaces are independent portions of the drive with Raspbian Lite, a minimal OS for building solutions via command-line programming.

Manufacturer Suggested Retail Price for the WD PiDrive Foundation Edition is $37.49 for the 375GB version, $28.99 for the 250GB version and $18.99 for the 64GB flash drive version. The WD PiDrive Foundation Edition (375GB and 250GB version) products come with a two-year limited warranty and the 64GB flash drive version comes with a one-year limited warranty and, along with WD PiDrive accessories, are currently available online at wd.com.