Maximum PC: We keep waiting for the day when solid state drives (SSDs) supplant mechanical hard disk drives (HDDs), and even though prices for NAND flash memory storage has dropped significantly in the past year or so, HDDS still offer more storage space for the dollar. Combined with notebook makers offering lower cost models, the demand for HDDs just keeps growing, and that's just fine by HGST.
Western Digital's HGST division is the first out with a 10TB enterprise-grade hard drive.
Maximum PC: Western Digital Corp. said on Thursday that it is on-track to ship its helium-filled hard disk drives with enlarged capacities to select customers this quarter. The company even revealed that the first sealed hard drives will utilize seven platters. Unfortunately, as it was revealed earlier, those products will not become truly mass devices for several quarters to come.
Maximum PC: Flash storage is sexy right now, so it's really not all that surprising that Western Digital went and scooped up Virident Systems, a provider of server-side flash storage solutions, for $685 million in cash. Virident will be integrated into HGST, a wholly owned subsidiary of Western Digital, the two companies announced today. In doing so, HGST becomes a player in enterprise solid state drives (SSDs), a market that's predicted to be worth $7 billion by 2017, according to International Data Corporation (IDC).
Making higher density physical hard disks is getting harder. They need to enter this market.
