Legal Proceedings	6 Months Ended
Jan. 02, 2015
Commitments and Contingencies Disclosure [Abstract]
Legal Proceedings	5. Legal Proceedings When the Company becomes aware of a claim or potential claim, the Company assesses the likelihood of any loss or exposure. The Company discloses information regarding each material claim where the likelihood of a loss contingency is probable or reasonably possible. If a loss contingency is probable and the amount of the loss can be reasonably estimated, the Company records an accrual for the loss. In such cases, there may be an exposure to potential loss in excess of the amount accrued. Where a loss is not probable but is reasonably possible or where a loss in excess of the amount accrued is reasonably possible, the Company discloses an estimate of the amount of the loss or range of possible losses for the claim if a reasonable estimate can be made, unless the amount of such reasonably possible losses is not material to the Company’s financial position, results of operations or cash flows. Unless otherwise stated below, for each of the matters described below, the Company has either recorded an accrual for losses that are probable and reasonably estimable or has determined that, while a loss is reasonably possible (including potential losses in excess of the amounts accrued by the Company), a reasonable estimate of the amount of loss or range of possible losses with respect to the claim or in excess of amounts already accrued by the Company cannot be made. The ability to predict the ultimate outcome of such matters involves judgments, estimates and inherent uncertainties. The actual outcome of such matters could differ materially from management’s estimates. Solely for purposes of this note, “WD” refers to Western Digital Corporation or one or more of its subsidiaries excluding HGST prior to the HGST Closing Date. HGST refers to Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Holdings Pte. Ltd. or one or more of its subsidiaries as of the HGST Closing Date, and “the Company” refers to Western Digital Corporation and all of its subsidiaries on a consolidated basis including HGST. Intellectual Property Litigation On June 20, 2008, plaintiff Convolve, Inc. (“Convolve”) filed a complaint in the Eastern District of Texas against WD, HGST, and one other company alleging infringement of U.S. Patent Nos. 6,314,473 and 4,916,635. The complaint sought unspecified monetary damages and injunctive relief. On October 10, 2008, Convolve amended its complaint to allege infringement of only the ‘473 patent. The ‘473 patent allegedly relates to interface technology to select between certain modes of a disk drive’s operations relating to speed and noise. A trial in the matter began on July 18, 2011 and concluded on July 26, 2011 with a verdict against WD and HGST in an amount that is not material to the Company’s financial position, results of operations or cash flows, for which the Company previously recorded an accrual. WD and HGST have filed post-trial motions challenging the verdict. On January 17, 2014, the Court denied the Company’s motion for judgment as a matter of law on invalidity. On May 20, 2014, the Court ordered supplemental briefing on post-trial motions related to infringement. Convolve and the Company filed their supplemental briefs on May 30, 2014 and June 6, 2014, respectively. Additional post-trial motions are pending, and the Company will evaluate its options for appeal after the Court rules on the remaining post-trial motions. The Company intends to continue to defend itself vigorously in this matter. On August 1, 2011, plaintiff Guzik Technical Enterprises (“Guzik”) filed a complaint in the Northern District of California against WD and various of its subsidiaries alleging infringement of U.S. Patent Nos. 6,023,145 and 6,785,085, breach of contract and misappropriation of trade secrets. The complaint seeks injunctive relief and unspecified monetary damages, fees and costs. The patents asserted by Guzik allegedly relate to devices used to test hard disk drive heads and media. On November 30, 2013, WD entered into a settlement agreement for an amount that is not material to the Company’s financial position, results of operations or cash flows, for which the Company recorded an accrual. Guzik is disputing the enforceability of the agreement and on December 27, 2013, WD filed a motion to enforce the agreement. The Court heard oral argument on WD’s motion on January 23, 2014. The Court granted WD’s motion to enforce the settlement agreement on March 21, 2014. On April 14, 2014, Guzik filed a Notice of Appeal to the Federal Circuit. On June 17, 2014, Guzik filed its opening appellate brief. WD filed its appellate brief on August 14, 2014. On September 11, 2014, Guzik filed its reply brief in support of its opening appellate brief. On January 7, 2015, the Federal Circuit heard oral argument on Guzik’ s appeal and on January 9, 2015, the Federal Circuit affirmed the Court’s decision granting WD’s motion to enforce the settlement agreement. WD intends to continue to defend itself vigorously in this matter. On March 24, 2014, plaintiff Steven F. Reiber (“Reiber”) filed a complaint in the Eastern District of California against the Company, alleging infringement of U.S. Patent Nos. 7,124,927 and 7,389,905. On September 16, 2014, Reiber filed an amended complaint in the Eastern District of California against the Company alleging infringement of three additional patents-U.S. Patent Nos. 6,935,548, 6,651,864, and 6,354,479. Reiber alleges that WD products (including hard disk drive heads, head gimbal assemblies, head stack assemblies and SSDs) infringe these patents based on the allegation that the manufacturing of these products involves the use of certain bonding tools (e.g., wire-bonding tips, capillary tips, and flip-chip handling tools) that have electrically “dissipative” properties, and which are used when bonding components, such as leads, wires and flip chips. The complaint seeks an injunction, unspecified monetary damages, interests, fees and costs. On September 30, 2014, the Company filed a motion to dismiss Reiber’s claims for induced infringement and contributory infringement. Oral argument on the Company’s motion to dismiss occurred on January 16, 2015. The parties' initial case management conference is set for April 16, 2015. The Company intends to defend itself vigorously in this matter. On October 20, 2014, plaintiff SOTA Semiconductor LLC (“SOTA”) filed a complaint in the Central District of California against the Company, Marvell Semiconductor, Inc., Belkin International, Inc., Dell Inc., Hewlett-Packard Company, Hisense USA Corp., Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A., Inc., Lenovo (United States) Inc., Netgear, Inc., Samsung Electronics America, Inc., and Seagate Technology LLC, alleging infringement of U.S. Patent No. 5,991,545 (“’545 patent”). SOTA alleges that the Company’s devices that incorporate Marvell Thumb Processors, including WD’s My Cloud EX2 network attached storage devices, which include model numbers WDBVKW0080JCH, WDBVKW0060JCH, WDBVKW0040JCH and WDBVKW0000NCH, infringe the ’545 patent. The complaint seeks unspecified monetary damages, interests, fees, costs and expenses. On December 12, 2014, the Company filed an answer and counterclaims to SOTA’s complaint. The Company intends to defend itself vigorously in this matter. Seagate Matter On October 4, 2006, plaintiff Seagate Technology LLC ("Seagate") filed an action in the District Court of Hennepin County, Minnesota, naming as defendants WD and one of its now former employees previously employed by Seagate. The complaint in the action alleged claims based on misappropriation of trade secrets and sought injunctive relief and unspecified monetary damages, interest, fees and costs. On June 19, 2007, WD’s former employee filed a demand for arbitration with the American Arbitration Association. On January 23, 2012, the arbitrator issued a total final award, including pre-award interest of $630.4 million. On January 23, 2012, WD filed a petition in the District Court of Hennepin County, Minnesota to have the final arbitration award vacated, and, on October 12, 2012, the District Court of Hennepin County, Minnesota vacated, in full, the $630.4 million final arbitration award, ordering that a rehearing be held concerning the alleged trade secret claims before a new arbitrator. Seagate appealed the District Court decision to the Minnesota Court of Appeals. On July 22, 2013, the Minnesota Court of Appeals reversed the District Court’s decision and remanded for entry of an order and judgment confirming the arbitration award. On August 20, 2013, the Company filed a petition for review with the Minnesota Supreme Court and, on October 15, 2013, the Minnesota Supreme Court granted the Company’s petition. On October 8, 2014, the Minnesota Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the Minnesota Court of Appeals. Because the Minnesota Supreme Court’s decision is not subject to appeal, on October 14, 2014, the Company paid Seagate $773.4 million to satisfy the full amount of the final arbitration award plus interest accrued through October 13, 2014. This amount was paid during the quarter ended January 2, 2015 by one of the Company’s foreign subsidiaries using cash held outside of the United States. Seagate disputes the method the Company used for calculating post-award interest and contends that the Company owes Seagate approximately $28.9 million in additional interest. The Company denies Seagate’s contention and believes it calculated interest properly in accordance with the arbitration award. On November 12, 2014, the Company filed a motion with the District Court seeking an order declaring that WD has paid to Seagate all amounts due under the arbitration award, including all pre-award and post-award interest, and all costs and disbursements assessed by the Minnesota Court of Appeals and the Minnesota Supreme Court. On December 23, 2014, Seagate filed a cross-motion seeking entry of judgment in the amount of $28.9 million, plus daily interest from October 15, 2014 until the date any judgment is paid. Both parties’ motions were fully briefed and, on January 9, 2015, the Court heard oral argument on both motions. The Court has not yet ruled on the matter. Other Matters On December 22, 2011, the German Central Organization for Private Copying Rights (Zentralstelle für private Überspielungsrechte), (“ZPÜ”), an organization consisting of several levy collecting societies, instituted arbitration proceedings against Western Digital's German subsidiary ("WD Germany") before to the Copyright Arbitration Board (“CAB”) claiming copyright levies for multimedia hard drives, external hard drives and network hard drives sold or introduced into commerce in Germany from January 2008 through December 2010. The CAB, which was required to issue a settlement proposal within one year of the initiation of the action, failed to do so and requested the parties consent to continue the deadline. WD Germany declined to provide consent and, on February 1, 2013, WD Germany filed a declaratory relief action against ZPÜ in the Higher Regional Court of Munich (the “Higher Court”), seeking an order from the court to determine the copyright levy issue. On May 21, 2013, ZPÜ filed a counter-claim against WD Germany with the Higher Court, seeking copyright levies for multimedia hard drives, external hard drives and network hard drives (collectively, "Covered Products") sold or introduced into commerce from January 2008 through December 2010 based on tariffs published by ZPÜ on November 3, 2011. On May 22, 2014, oral argument on the pleadings occurred. On January 15, 2015, the Higher Court ruled in favor of ZPÜ. In its ruling, the Higher Court declared that WD Germany must pay certain levies on certain WD products which it sold in Germany between January 1, 2008 and December 31, 2010. The judgment specifies levy amounts on certain WD products sold from 2008 to 2010 and directs WD Germany to provide applicable sales data to the ZPÜ. The exact amount of the judgment has not been determined. WD Germany intends to appeal this decision to the German Federal Court of Justice and defend itself vigorously in this matter. On December 11, 2014, ZPÜ submitted a pleading to the CAB seeking copyright levies for Covered Products sold by WD or introduced into commerce in Germany from January 1, 2012 to December 31, 2013. WD Germany intends to defend itself vigorously in this matter. In the three months ended January 2, 2015, the Company recorded an accrual for German copyright levies in an amount that is not material to the Company’s financial position, results of operations or cash flows. It is reasonably possible that the Company may incur losses totaling up to $90 million, including the amount accrued. In the normal course of business, the Company is subject to other legal proceedings, lawsuits and other claims. Although the ultimate aggregate amount of probable monetary liability or financial impact with respect to these other matters is subject to many uncertainties and is therefore not predictable with assurance, management believes that any monetary liability or financial impact to the Company from these other matters, individually and in the aggregate, would not be material to the Company’s financial condition, results of operations or cash flows. However, there can be no assurance with respect to such result, and monetary liability or financial impact to the Company from these other matters could differ materially from those projected.

5. Legal Proceedings

When the Company becomes aware of a claim or potential claim, the Company assesses the likelihood of any loss or exposure. The Company discloses information regarding each material claim where the likelihood of a loss contingency is probable or reasonably possible. If a loss contingency is probable and the amount of the loss can be reasonably estimated, the Company records an accrual for the loss. In such cases, there may be an exposure to potential loss in excess of the amount accrued. Where a loss is not probable but is reasonably possible or where a loss in excess of the amount accrued is reasonably possible, the Company discloses an estimate of the amount of the loss or range of possible losses for the claim if a reasonable estimate can be made, unless the amount of such reasonably possible losses is not material to the Company’s financial position, results of operations or cash flows. Unless otherwise stated below, for each of the matters described below, the Company has either recorded an accrual for losses that are probable and reasonably estimable or has determined that, while a loss is reasonably possible (including potential losses in excess of the amounts accrued by the Company), a reasonable estimate of the amount of loss or range of possible losses with respect to the claim or in excess of amounts already accrued by the Company cannot be made. The ability to predict the ultimate outcome of such matters involves judgments, estimates and inherent uncertainties. The actual outcome of such matters could differ materially from management’s estimates.

Solely for purposes of this note, “WD” refers to Western Digital Corporation or one or more of its subsidiaries excluding HGST prior to the HGST Closing Date. HGST refers to Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Holdings Pte. Ltd. or one or more of its subsidiaries as of the HGST Closing Date, and “the Company” refers to Western Digital Corporation and all of its subsidiaries on a consolidated basis including HGST.

Intellectual Property Litigation

On June 20, 2008, plaintiff Convolve, Inc. (“Convolve”) filed a complaint in the Eastern District of Texas against WD, HGST, and one other company alleging infringement of U.S. Patent Nos. 6,314,473 and 4,916,635. The complaint sought unspecified monetary damages and injunctive relief. On October 10, 2008, Convolve amended its complaint to allege infringement of only the ‘473 patent. The ‘473 patent allegedly relates to interface technology to select between certain modes of a disk drive’s operations relating to speed and noise. A trial in the matter began on July 18, 2011 and concluded on July 26, 2011 with a verdict against WD and HGST in an amount that is not material to the Company’s financial position, results of operations or cash flows, for which the Company previously recorded an accrual. WD and HGST have filed post-trial motions challenging the verdict. On January 17, 2014, the Court denied the Company’s motion for judgment as a matter of law on invalidity. On May 20, 2014, the Court ordered supplemental briefing on post-trial motions related to infringement. Convolve and the Company filed their supplemental briefs on May 30, 2014 and June 6, 2014, respectively. Additional post-trial motions are pending, and the Company will evaluate its options for appeal after the Court rules on the remaining post-trial motions. The Company intends to continue to defend itself vigorously in this matter.

On August 1, 2011, plaintiff Guzik Technical Enterprises (“Guzik”) filed a complaint in the Northern District of California against WD and various of its subsidiaries alleging infringement of U.S. Patent Nos. 6,023,145 and 6,785,085, breach of contract and misappropriation of trade secrets. The complaint seeks injunctive relief and unspecified monetary damages, fees and costs. The patents asserted by Guzik allegedly relate to devices used to test hard disk drive heads and media. On November 30, 2013, WD entered into a settlement agreement for an amount that is not material to the Company’s financial position, results of operations or cash flows, for which the Company recorded an accrual. Guzik is disputing the enforceability of the agreement and on December 27, 2013, WD filed a motion to enforce the agreement. The Court heard oral argument on WD’s motion on January 23, 2014. The Court granted WD’s motion to enforce the settlement agreement on March 21, 2014. On April 14, 2014, Guzik filed a Notice of Appeal to the Federal Circuit. On June 17, 2014, Guzik filed its opening appellate brief. WD filed its appellate brief on August 14, 2014. On September 11, 2014, Guzik filed its reply brief in support of its opening appellate brief. On January 7, 2015, the Federal Circuit heard oral argument on Guzik’ s appeal and on January 9, 2015, the Federal Circuit affirmed the Court’s decision granting WD’s motion to enforce the settlement agreement. WD intends to continue to defend itself vigorously in this matter.

On March 24, 2014, plaintiff Steven F. Reiber (“Reiber”) filed a complaint in the Eastern District of California against the Company, alleging infringement of U.S. Patent Nos. 7,124,927 and 7,389,905. On September 16, 2014, Reiber filed an amended complaint in the Eastern District of California against the Company alleging infringement of three additional patents-U.S. Patent Nos. 6,935,548, 6,651,864, and 6,354,479. Reiber alleges that WD products (including hard disk drive heads, head gimbal assemblies, head stack assemblies and SSDs) infringe these patents based on the allegation that the manufacturing of these products involves the use of certain bonding tools (e.g., wire-bonding tips, capillary tips, and flip-chip handling tools) that have electrically “dissipative” properties, and which are used when bonding components, such as leads, wires and flip chips. The complaint seeks an injunction, unspecified monetary damages, interests, fees and costs. On September 30, 2014, the Company filed a motion to dismiss Reiber’s claims for induced infringement and contributory infringement. Oral argument on the Company’s motion to dismiss occurred on January 16, 2015. The parties' initial case management conference is set for April 16, 2015. The Company intends to defend itself vigorously in this matter.

On October 20, 2014, plaintiff SOTA Semiconductor LLC (“SOTA”) filed a complaint in the Central District of California against the Company, Marvell Semiconductor, Inc., Belkin International, Inc., Dell Inc., Hewlett-Packard Company, Hisense USA Corp., Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A., Inc., Lenovo (United States) Inc., Netgear, Inc., Samsung Electronics America, Inc., and Seagate Technology LLC, alleging infringement of U.S. Patent No. 5,991,545 (“’545 patent”). SOTA alleges that the Company’s devices that incorporate Marvell Thumb Processors, including WD’s My Cloud EX2 network attached storage devices, which include model numbers WDBVKW0080JCH, WDBVKW0060JCH, WDBVKW0040JCH and WDBVKW0000NCH, infringe the ’545 patent. The complaint seeks unspecified monetary damages, interests, fees, costs and expenses. On December 12, 2014, the Company filed an answer and counterclaims to SOTA’s complaint. The Company intends to defend itself vigorously in this matter.

Seagate Matter

On October 4, 2006, plaintiff Seagate Technology LLC ("Seagate") filed an action in the District Court of Hennepin County, Minnesota, naming as defendants WD and one of its now former employees previously employed by Seagate. The complaint in the action alleged claims based on misappropriation of trade secrets and sought injunctive relief and unspecified monetary damages, interest, fees and costs. On June 19, 2007, WD’s former employee filed a demand for arbitration with the American Arbitration Association.

On January 23, 2012, the arbitrator issued a total final award, including pre-award interest of $630.4 million. On January 23, 2012, WD filed a petition in the District Court of Hennepin County, Minnesota to have the final arbitration award vacated, and, on October 12, 2012, the District Court of Hennepin County, Minnesota vacated, in full, the $630.4 million final arbitration award, ordering that a rehearing be held concerning the alleged trade secret claims before a new arbitrator.

Seagate appealed the District Court decision to the Minnesota Court of Appeals. On July 22, 2013, the Minnesota Court of Appeals reversed the District Court’s decision and remanded for entry of an order and judgment confirming the arbitration award. On August 20, 2013, the Company filed a petition for review with the Minnesota Supreme Court and, on October 15, 2013, the Minnesota Supreme Court granted the Company’s petition. On October 8, 2014, the Minnesota Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the Minnesota Court of Appeals. Because the Minnesota Supreme Court’s decision is not subject to appeal, on October 14, 2014, the Company paid Seagate $773.4 million to satisfy the full amount of the final arbitration award plus interest accrued through October 13, 2014. This amount was paid during the quarter ended January 2, 2015 by one of the Company’s foreign subsidiaries using cash held outside of the United States.

Seagate disputes the method the Company used for calculating post-award interest and contends that the Company owes Seagate approximately $28.9 million in additional interest. The Company denies Seagate’s contention and believes it calculated interest properly in accordance with the arbitration award. On November 12, 2014, the Company filed a motion with the District Court seeking an order declaring that WD has paid to Seagate all amounts due under the arbitration award, including all pre-award and post-award interest, and all costs and disbursements assessed by the Minnesota Court of Appeals and the Minnesota Supreme Court. On December 23, 2014, Seagate filed a cross-motion seeking entry of judgment in the amount of $28.9 million, plus daily interest from October 15, 2014 until the date any judgment is paid. Both parties’ motions were fully briefed and, on January 9, 2015, the Court heard oral argument on both motions. The Court has not yet ruled on the matter.

Other Matters

On December 22, 2011, the German Central Organization for Private Copying Rights (Zentralstelle für private Überspielungsrechte), (“ZPÜ”), an organization consisting of several levy collecting societies, instituted arbitration proceedings against Western Digital's German subsidiary ("WD Germany") before to the Copyright Arbitration Board (“CAB”) claiming copyright levies for multimedia hard drives, external hard drives and network hard drives sold or introduced into commerce in Germany from January 2008 through December 2010. The CAB, which was required to issue a settlement proposal within one year of the initiation of the action, failed to do so and requested the parties consent to continue the deadline. WD Germany declined to provide consent and, on February 1, 2013, WD Germany filed a declaratory relief action against ZPÜ in the Higher Regional Court of Munich (the “Higher Court”), seeking an order from the court to determine the copyright levy issue. On May 21, 2013, ZPÜ filed a counter-claim against WD Germany with the Higher Court, seeking copyright levies for multimedia hard drives, external hard drives and network hard drives (collectively, "Covered Products") sold or introduced into commerce from January 2008 through December 2010 based on tariffs published by ZPÜ on November 3, 2011. On May 22, 2014, oral argument on the pleadings occurred. On January 15, 2015, the Higher Court ruled in favor of ZPÜ. In its ruling, the Higher Court declared that WD Germany must pay certain levies on certain WD products which it sold in Germany between January 1, 2008 and December 31, 2010. The judgment specifies levy amounts on certain WD products sold from 2008 to 2010 and directs WD Germany to provide applicable sales data to the ZPÜ. The exact amount of the judgment has not been determined. WD Germany intends to appeal this decision to the German Federal Court of Justice and defend itself vigorously in this matter.

On December 11, 2014, ZPÜ submitted a pleading to the CAB seeking copyright levies for Covered Products sold by WD or introduced into commerce in Germany from January 1, 2012 to December 31, 2013. WD Germany intends to defend itself vigorously in this matter.

In the three months ended January 2, 2015, the Company recorded an accrual for German copyright levies in an amount that is not material to the Company’s financial position, results of operations or cash flows. It is reasonably possible that the Company may incur losses totaling up to $90 million, including the amount accrued.

In the normal course of business, the Company is subject to other legal proceedings, lawsuits and other claims. Although the ultimate aggregate amount of probable monetary liability or financial impact with respect to these other matters is subject to many uncertainties and is therefore not predictable with assurance, management believes that any monetary liability or financial impact to the Company from these other matters, individually and in the aggregate, would not be material to the Company’s financial condition, results of operations or cash flows. However, there can be no assurance with respect to such result, and monetary liability or financial impact to the Company from these other matters could differ materially from those projected.