[Cockroach]

It would appear there will be less competition in the hard (winchester) drive market. Hitachi is selling its HD business (part of which was acquired from IBM) to Western Digital in a cash + stock deal which will give Hitachi 10% of Western Digital.

That would leave just 3 players in the winchester market. WD, Seagate (which took over Conner which was founded by a Seagate alumnus Finis Conner?) and Samsung.

 

[Danster]

Not necessarily. Maybe HDD will get better. Hitachi and WD can only mean more robust drives.

 

[NeilN]

Sort of related (found on Boing Boing):

YEAR -- Price of a Gigabyte
1981 -- $300,000
1987 -- $50,000
1990 -- $10,000
1994 -- $1000
1997 -- $100
2000 -- $10
2004 -- $1
2010 -- $0.10

Source: http://ns1758.ca/winch/winchest.html

 

[hugh]

I doubt it will make much difference.

It will likely slow the decrease in price per gigabyte a bit but I think that will only be temporary as the competition for mechanical drives in the future will be Solid State Drives.

 

[Costa]

NeilN, that quote is kinda right, and wrong. Price Per Gigabyte for HDD's are a lot cheaper than than most recent SSD's. Also, the same can apply for different versons and performance levels of HDD too. You could find a 2TB for lets say, 80 bucks, and another 2TB for 250. Especially with the 'green' and 'black' categories.

 

[hugh]

Regardless, lets stick to the topic at hand please.

 

[redzone]

3 players in the market is still enough to keep them honest and competitive assuming theres not back room price fixing going on