We are expecting that Western Digital is going to put a rest to the shipments of the parallel-ATA (PATA or legacy ATA) hard drives and this stoppage will be effective since the 29th of this month. The lineup of PATA hard drives was a small one in the company’s extensive product portfolio and this was solely to help the people who were still using the older laptops and wanted some upgrades for their hard drives. It has been long since the old standard hard drives have gone out and their extinction can be attributed to the introduction of the SATA and AHCI.

Product discontinuation notifications which are commonly referred to as the PDNs were issued this May for the Caviar PATA hard drives which were to be the company’s lasts. The models included WD800AAJB (80 GB), WD1600AAJB (160 GB), WD2500AAJB (250 GB), WD3200AAJB (320 GB), WD4000AAJB (400 GB), and WD5000AAJB (500 GB). The PDNs were to solicit the very last orders for these hard drives with the distributors. By the 29th of December, these hard drives would have entered their last stage known as the “end of life” state. From this date onwards, only the active warranties will be catered to.

Source: Expreview | News Archive