western digital to buy hitachi's HD business

[dr.walrus]

Having had half a dozen WDs with perfect reliability, preceded by 3 or 4 Seagates that died horribly, my take on this is just sheer probability.

[mDust]

thoughts?

4.5 billion dollars is a lot of money. That's about all I thought. As SSDs get larger and cheaper, HDDs are going to eventually go the way of the floppies, dodo and parachute pants. [Allegedly] bad HD makers will get a chance to change their reputation again when they all start making SSDs as SSDs are completely separate tech and bad practices [probably] won't carry over.

wont hitachi still be around just a different division?

The parent company will be around but they're out of the HDD market.

[AmEv]

To the point where we can ACTUALLY AFFORD that 1GB SSD on the 'Egg.

I like that.

[TheGreatSatan]

Still be Deathstars.

WD and I have a long love/hate relationship. I love to hate their malfunctioning drives. I once received a full case of dead drives from them.

I don't get the old predjudice. Yes, they had a sucky point. So did Seagates back when the 7200.10's were out. Hitachi drives are great these days

[Konrad]

Does this mean WD can capitalize on Hitachi's technology patents? Will future WD drives have best-of-both-worlds capabilities?

Or will WD continue to operate Hitachi somewhat "as is", just using the brand to hit markets they haven't yet penetrated deeply?

I can't see them entirely abolishing Hitachi HDD ... this would be a very costly way for them to eliminate a competitor.