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[clav]

http://www.electronista.com/articles/11/03/07/wd.buys.hitachi.storage.division/

Western Digital to snap up Hitachi GST for $4.3 billion
updated 08:15 am EST, Mon March 7, 2011WD buys Hitachi storage division

Western Digital said on Monday that it was buying Hitachi Global Storage Technologies for the equivalent of $4.3 billion. The move includes a combination of $3.5 billion in cash as well as shares worth about $750 million. The deal will see the WD name remain but see Hitachi GST's CEO Steve Milligan join WD as president.

John Coyne, Western Digital CEO, argued that the move was chiefly for scale. The two would form a larger competitor and would have the advantage of better research and a wider range of products. Hitachi has focused on fields such as drives for set-top boxes as well as a greater focus on mobile hard drives.

The play is an attempt to hedge Western Digital's position and compete against an increasingly tougher market. Hitachi has had reduced influence, while Western Digital has been in a long-running battle with its fellow American rival Seagate. Absorbing Hitachi would give the combined company greater clout.

So that leaves us with from a mechanical hard drive standpoint:

Seagate-Maxtor
Western Digital-Hitachi
Toshiba-Fujitsu
Samsung

 

[ElectricBlue187]

So it's just the hard drive part. TV's and stuff will still e Hitachi. I remember they used to have pretty decent rear projections

 

[nubbe]

Noooooooooooo

They are the only good consumer raid disks

fuck you TLER

 

[zomgbbqftw]

Western Digital SSDs here we come!

Good purchase by WD though, they need to get into SSDs and Hitachi gives them a grandfathered deal with Intel for IMFT NAND flash large scale purchases.

 

[Technosteve]

hitachi buys ibm
western digital buy hitachi

the end of the the deathstar keke?

 

[Phobophile]

So this means either Hitachi will improve Western Digital (no one in my family's had a WD drive that hasn't crapped out within a year, anecdotal, yes but it's happened over a decade) or WD will just drag Hitachi down.

 

[Zyzyxxz]

not to mention the mobile storage market is strong right now until the so called "cloud" computing takes off.

 

[Dreams-Visions]

I didn't know WD had that kind of bank. Damn.

 

[Rur0ni]

Noooooooooooo

They are the only good consumer raid disks

fuck you TLER

Pretty much. This is a grab at Hitachi's SAS/Enterprise customers/technology. Assuming they cripple the consumer drives for RAID, then we're left with Samsung.

Edit: For myself, going to pick up quite a few 5K3000 disks to hold me over.

 

[XiaNaphryz]

So this means either Hitachi will improve Western Digital (no one in my family's had a WD drive that hasn't crapped out within a year, anecdotal, yes but it's happened over a decade) or WD will just drag Hitachi down.

Not sure about their internal drives, but I've had good experiences with the WD external stuff.

 

[Rur0ni]

Not sure about their internal drives, but I've had good experiences with the WD external stuff.

Same disks in a shell. The only problems across a brand in recent memory are Seagate 1.5TB disks.

 

[clav]

Same disks in a shell. The only problems across a brand in recent memory are Seagate 1.5TB disks.

The Seagate 7200.11 firmware disaster.

Talk about 1TB drives bricking themselves.

I have a Maxtor Diamond Max drive (rebranded Seagate 7200.10), and it's noisy as fuck.

Not surprised that Western Digital has that money to burn when its reputation built themselves to the average consumer stating, "Western Digital is the most reliable drive manufacturer" even though it's not true.

 

[Rur0ni]

The Seagate 7200.11 firmware disaster.

Talk about 1TB drives bricking themselves.

Not surprised that Western Digital has that money to burn when its reputation built themselves to the average consumer stating "Western Digital is the most reliable drive manufacturer."

When talking to the average tech, it's always:

"Western Digital is the best!"
"Seagate has some problems but 2nd to WD."
"Hitachi? Deathstar LOLZ"
"Samsung? TVs?"

 

[DopeyFish]

way to mess up the topic lol

i was thinking to myself how WD bought a massive company for so little...

 

[Yazan]

http://www.electronista.com/articles/11/03/07/wd.buys.hitachi.storage.division/


So that leaves us with from a mechanical hard drive standpoint:

Seagate-Maxtor
Western Digital-Hitachi
Toshiba-Fujitsu
Samsung

How big is Verbatim?

 

[clav]

How big is Verbatim?

I thought Verbatim and Lacie use drives from other manufacturers. I've never bought a Verbatim drive, but I have a Lacie one that uses a Samsung drive.

 

[Megadragon15]

How big is Verbatim?

Verbatim makes as many hard drives as Iomega. Zero.

 

[Yazan]

I thought Verbatim and Lacie use drives from other manufacturers. I've never bought a Verbatim drive, but I have a Lacie one that uses a Samsung drive.

Oh, you always learn something

 

[DonMigs85]

I have to admit that Fujitsu is/was pretty good. I've banged my laptop around a fair bit and the drive still has 99% SMART health after a couple years.

 

[Sealda]

Hitachi, the whole thing is like 10th bigger than Western Digital.

 

[Ovid]

Samsung wanted Sandisk a couple years ago. Didn't happen though.

Thank God.

 

[Mudkips]

So that leaves us with from a mechanical hard drive standpoint:

Seagate-Maxtor-Quantum
Western Digital-Hitachi
Toshiba-Fujitsu
Samsung

Fixed.
The good ol' days of the Quantum fucking Fireball.

 

[makingmusic476]

I love Western Digital. They're my go to guys for internal drives.

I'm really fond of my external 1TB Seagate drive, though.

 

[Stat Flow]

I'm loving my 1tb external WD HDD. Use a WD FAT-HDD For my PS3 (although I just bought a 500GB internal HDD for that so I don't really need it) and I'm gonna be buying a 2tb External WD from Amazon soon. I like Western Digital.

 

[SRG01]

Haha, and at first I thought they were buying their heavy industries and scientific stuff too. That would've been funny.