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Seagate has become the first hard drive maker to achieve the milestone storage density of 1 terabit (1 trillion bits) per square inch, producing a demonstration of the technology that promises to double the storage capacity of today’s hard drives upon its introduction later this decade and give rise to 3.5-inch hard drives with an extraordinary capacity of up to 60 terabytes over the 10 years that follow. The bits within a square inch of disk space, at the new milestone, far outnumber stars in the Milky Way, which astronomers put between 200 billion and 400 billion.
Seagate reached the landmark data density with heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR), the next- generation recording technology. The current hard drive technology, Perpendicular Magnetic Recording (PMR), is used to record the spectrum of digitized data – from music, photos, and video stored on home desktop and laptop PCs to business information housed in sprawling data centers – on the spinning platters inside every hard drive. PMR technology was introduced in 2006 to replace longitudinal recording, a method in place since the advent of hard drives for computer storage in 1956, and is expected to reach its capacity limit near 1 terabit per square inch in the next few years.
“The growth of social media, search engines, cloud computing, rich media and other data-hungry applications continues to stoke demand for ever greater storage capacity,” said Mark Re, senior vice president of Heads and Media Research and Development at Seagate. “Hard disk drive innovations like HAMR will be a key enabler of the development of even more data-intense applications in the future, extending the ways businesses and consumers worldwide use, manage and store digital content.”
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Western Digital, the world's leader in external storage solutions, is now shipping its first external hard drive with Thunderbolt technology – the My Book Thunderbolt Duo dual-drive storage system. The new My Book Thunderbolt Duo provides professionals and Mac® enthusiasts with five primary areas of performance, double-safe data protection and flexibility; ultra-fast data transfer rates for greater work efficiency; a 4 TB/6 TB large-capacity; customized dual-drive storage system with RAID 0, 1 and JBOD options; customer serviceable drives; and dual Thunderbolt ports for daisy-chaining multiple My Book Thunderbolt Duo devices or other peripherals.
Thunderbolt technology brings a new way to connect high-speed storage devices to any desktop or notebook computer with a Thunderbolt port while delivering unmatched speed for multitasking activities such as, editing video/music, 3D rendering, and completing other high definition graphics-intensive projects.
"Offering lightning-fast throughput in both directions, the new WD Thunderbolt Duo storage systems are just what I need for organizing, editing, and archiving complex High Definition video projects," said Bruce Dorn, DGA (Director's Guild of America). Configurable as either RAID 0 or RAID 1 - and offered in both 4 TB and 6 TB capacities - these new WD Thunderbolt Duo systems are the perfect solution for video filmmakers who are desperate for an uber-fast time sensitive project management solution."
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Western Digital, a leader in the desktop, mobile, high-capacity enterprise and consumer markets for hard drives, today announced the availability of its third-generation WD S25 SAS hard drives, serving the performance-optimized, mission-critical enterprise server and storage market. Shipping now, the new 2.5-inch, 10,000 RPM, WD S25 with SAS 6 Gb/s interface hard drives offer IT professionals a more advanced array of ultra-reliable and efficient, high-performance storage, available in capacities of 300 GB, 450 GB, 600 GB, and 900 GB. The WD S25 line is designed for the most demanding applications such as online transaction processing and multi-tiered networked storage arrays.
"Continuing our commitment to the industry's fastest-growing segment -- 2.5-inch drives -- WD is updating our small form factor SAS offering with the advanced technology of our third-generation drive, including a new 900 GB capacity point," said Darwin Kauffman, vice president of enterprise storage solutions, WD. "Our latest generation of WD S25 SAS drives offer a powerful combination of enterprise-class performance and industry-leading reliability that is ideal for demanding high-performance computing and mission-critical environments. WD is also delivering higher capacity offerings and the power efficiency of the small form factor footprint, providing the most efficient storage solution for IT professionals and enabling lower TCO (Total Cost of Ownership)."
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Western Digital Corp. today announced that it has completed its acquisition of Viviti Technologies Ltd. (formerly Hitachi Global Storage Technologies), effective Mar. 8, 2012, for $3.9 billion in cash and 25 million shares of WDC common stock valued at approximately $0.9 billion. Hitachi, Ltd. now owns approximately 10 percent of WDC shares outstanding, and it has the right to designate two individuals to the board of directors of WD.
The new WD will operate with WD Technologies (WD) and HGST as wholly owned subsidiaries. Aggregated revenues of the two companies in 2011 were $15 billion. As chief executive officer of WD, John Coyne heads up the new office of the CEO, with Steve Milligan as president, Tim Leyden as chief operating officer and Wolfgang Nickl as chief financial officer.
"The completion of this acquisition is a truly momentous event in the 42-year history of our company," said Coyne. "With ownership of two successful companies and the best talent available in the industry, we expect to accomplish great things as we build the new WD to be the world's leading storage solutions provider with the industry's deepest technology capability, broadest product portfolio and best-in-class execution. Similar to successful multi-brand models in other industries, the two subsidiaries will compete in the marketplace with separate brands and product lines while sharing common values of customer delight, value creation, consistent profitability and growth."
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Western Digital Corp. today reported that it has reached an agreement with Toshiba Corporation to divest certain assets to address the requirements of regulatory agencies that have conditionally approved or are continuing to review the company's planned acquisition of Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (HGST). The asset package covered by the agreement will enable Toshiba to manufacture and sell 3.5-inch hard drives for the desktop and consumer electronics markets and will enhance its ability to manufacture and sell 3.5-inch hard drives for near-line (business critical) applications. The divestiture transaction is subject to review by regulatory agencies in certain jurisdictions.
WD also reported that it has agreed, subject to completion of the divestiture transaction, to purchase Toshiba Storage Device (Thailand) Company Limited (TSDT). TSDT manufactured hard drives but has not resumed operations after the recent Thailand flooding. The principal assets of TSDT are its Thailand property, facilities and employees. Subject to completion of the transaction, WD plans to integrate these facilities and employees into its Thailand operations. The financial terms of the two agreements were not disclosed.
The closing of the transactions with Toshiba is conditioned on WD's closing of its planned acquisition of HGST, which remains subject to several closing conditions, including the receipt of certain remaining antitrust approvals. Subject to obtaining these approvals, the company is targeting the transactions with Toshiba to close in March 2012.
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