Western Digital announced yesterday that it has acquired Hitachi Global Storage Technologies to the tune of $3.9 billion and 25 million shares valued at $0.9 billion. To sweeten the deal even further, Hitachi now owns 10 percent of Western Digital shares and it can appoint two people to Western Digital’s board of directors.

WD technologies and HGST will both operate under the WD banner as wholly owned subsidiaries. In 2011, the two companies made about $15 billion combined. WD’s CEO, John Coyne, will remain as CEO of the new venture.

“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.”

The news could not have come at a better time as hard drive sales are at an all-time high. The growth of the hard drive business is expected to rise at the rate of 8.6 percent per year from 2011 to 2016. What’s the biggest driver in hard drive sales? If you guessed cloud computing, you would be right on the money. They aren’t the only ones though as mobility, social business and big data analytics are all driving increased hard drive storage sales.

WD CEO Coyne says that while they are still seeing success in traditional markets, new sales from enterprise solid-state drives, storage solutions for small businesses and low-profile HDDs and hybrid drives for Ultrabooks is what’s driving their current growth.

The Verge pointed out that this acquisition makes Western Digital the largest hard drive manufacturer in the world. Now that they’re here, does this mean that we’re going to get cheaper solid state drives? I’m still not entirely on board with paying $300 for half the storage of what that money would get me in a traditional hard drive.

“I’m hoping I can be a community resource to companies that want not only to understand ‘what’ and ‘Why’ to use social media but to help answer ‘HOW’ to deploy. At many of the conference, speeches, and workshops folks talk about why blogging is great, what happens if you’re not listening or if you’re unauthentic -the conversation has progressed beyond that, and now we must answer the ‘How’ as community managers enter this new era of practice.”

Jeremiah takes up the role of Director of Corporate Media Strategy.

Good luck Jeremiah!

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Andy Beal is an internet marketing consultant and considered one of the world’s most respected and interactive search engine marketing experts. Andy has worked with many Fortune 1000 companies such as Motorola, CitiFinancial, Lowes, Alaska Air, DeWALT, NBC and Experian.

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Not content to simply attack the lower-end markets, they tacked on a 1 million hour MTBF (which means not only will the drive never break, it will be spinning post-Apocalypse) and a 5 year warranty.

Sounds great right? It sure does. Now, did the company use its marketing muscle to come up with a crafty high-end “enterprise” caliber name for the line? Something like DS500 (death star) or Infinity500 or DC500 (data center)??? Nope. It uses Deskstar. Yep. Deskstar. Why not Lunch box 500? or CameInTheCerealBox 500? I can see the ad campaign now, “Mr. VP of IT, if you have a desk, now you are a star”. Ugh.

How many desks have critical enterprise data on them? Maybe the age of consolidation has gone so far as to shrink data centers down into furniture looking things. HP used to make an MPE machine that looked like a desk. I sat on it in the Boston, MA Putnam Investments data center once, having no idea it was not furniture. That might have been OK, except I was the EMC sales rep/installer that was going to plug a new memory board into that desk, which probably did not instill a very high degree of confidence in the customer. I’m pretty sure I left the board there for one of the guys techies and took him to a bar to wait it out.

I digress. My point is that if you wanna make people feel comfortable about applying your product or technology into their worlds, you should first try to understand what those requirements mean, and second, you might want to consider a naming convention that connotes confidence. Who would buy an Ab Blaster if it were called a “You’ll never use it anyway, and end up putting it in the basement with clothes hanging from it that don’t fit you anyway, you fat slob”?

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Steve Duplessie is the author of the “Steve’s IT Rants” blog, and the founder and Sr. Analyst of the Enterprise Strategy Group.

This deal will give Ingram the rights to distribute the HDS TagmaStore Workgroup Modular Storage model WMS100 and Adaptable Modular Storage model AMS200. This includes six, pre-configures products, three for the WMS100 and AMS200. The AMS200 and WMS100 include the Logical Cache Partitioning and Virtual Storage Ports in additional to the RAID-6, RAID-5, 1+0 and 1 for both sets of products.

The series will work with Microsoft’s Exchange, ERP and CRM environments and has been certified for the Simple SAN for Windows Server program. The units come in both 2 Gbps and 2 Gbps configurations and include all the hardware and software to get servers connected to a SAN.

Mike Novotny of Intertech Computer Products told CRN, “The way Hitachi is packaging it, it lets us move more aggressively into the market than we have. Everything is SKU’d up so we can sell and service it without all the authorization. And that’s attractive to us.”

SearchStorage.com quoted Kevin Murai, president and chief operating officer at Ingram Micro saying, “Having a storage-centric company in the mix was important we’re offering as much choice as we can.

For now, Ingram Micro will work on getting the HDS products out there via Venture Tech Network’s VAR because they’re a stronger market with more tech savvy.

CRN also quoted Pat Edwards of Alliance Technology Group as saying, “Call me crazy, but it’s like why a gas station opens across the road from another. As long as it doesn’t encroach on what I do, which requires certification, it doesn’t affect me.”

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Well, you know they mean something bad is undoubtedly about to happen, but how do you find out what, exactly?

Go to this Hitachi page and check out the .wav recordings there of various noises you might hear that likely indicate a failing hard drive. Listen to them and weep. But at least you’ll know

I’ve experienced the slow spindle motor death sound. The scariest sound – head damage #3!

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Japan loves the DVR concept, but in places like Europe and the US, the idea hasn’t been widely adopted among users. That means the high-end HD recorder CNN discusses in a recent article may not get a US debut.

A full terabyte of storage, which Hitachi accomplishes with a pair of 500GB hard drives, can store about 128 hours of HDTV broadcasts. For ‘Survivor’ fans, that means being able to replay every bead of sweat broadcast for several seasons over and over again.

Hitachi has been a minnow in the big koi pond of Japanese DVR manufacturers. Matushita, Sony, Toshiba, and Sharp all have much greater market share in Japan, where over half of the market for DVR units exists, according to CNN.

With the new product and three other models of lesser capacities and prices, Hitachi believes it can break into the high-definition market in a big way and snag a 35 percent share over the last two quarters of its business year.

Author’s note: the source for this article refers to the devices as DVD recorders. DVDs only have a 5GB capacity; the storage sizes referenced in the source material are way too high for DVD recorders.

David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business. Email him here.

Hitachi’s DS-110E-W Explosives Trace Detection System garnered certification from the TSA, according to a statement from the company. This technology detects the presence of explosives through mass-spectrometry analysis.

Security personnel use special “wipe sheets” to swab carry-on bags and checked luggage. The Hitachi ETDS checks for traces of explosives on those sheets, and notifies handlers of any problems it detects.

Hitachi notes that its technology offers a significant advantage for those employing the ETDS: “The samples are ionized using a clean corona discharge, instead of the conventional radiation sources used in other ETDS units.

“This eliminates the need for various applications and certifications required for the management and handling of radiological equipment.”

TSA deployments of such technology have been made at several airports, as evidenced by wipe procedures conducted by security personnel. The agency has also deployed “puffer” machines, which use puffs of air to blow particles off passengers at six airports. Those machines then scan the air for explosive traces.

David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business. Email him here.

The following is Hitachi’s release concerning their upcoming drives:

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies is today announcing new advancements to a 100-year-old magnetic recording technology that will set the stage for ultra-high capacities such as a 20-gigabyte Microdrive or a one terabyte 3.5-inch hard drive.

To achieve this, Hitachi has demonstrated the industry’s highest data density at 230 gigabits per square inch (Gb/in2) on perpendicular recording. Hitachi believes 230 Gb/in2, which represents a doubling of today’s highest longitudinal recording densities, will be implemented in commercial hard drive products in 2007.

When fully realized over the next 5-7 years, perpendicular recording could enable a 10-fold increase in data densities over longitudinal recording, paving the way for new heights in capacity such as a 60 GB one-inch drive.

Perpendicular recording has its roots in the late 19th century work of Danish scientist Valdemar Poulsen, who is generally considered the first person to magnetically record sound using perpendicular recording. The technology gets its name from the vertical alignment of data bits on the plane of the disk, which takes less room in contrast to the horizontal orientation of today’s longitudinal recording technology.

To be accurately recorded and read, the more closely-packed perpendicular bits also require a closer association between the read/write head and the recording media. Hitachi achieved the 230 Gb/in2 density by manipulating the head and media so that the distance between them is a mere 10 nanometers or 1/10,000th of a human hair.

While the hard drive industry has been using longitudinal recording successfully for five decades, it is now within two product generations of reaching its practical limit. Researchers are finding that longitudinal recording is losing its ability to maintain data integrity at areal densities much beyond 120 Gb/in2.

“We are at the cusp of the most significant hard drive technology transition of the past decade, and it’s one that holds so much promise for the hard drive and consumer electronics industries,” said Jun Naruse, CEO, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies. “As the biggest supplier of small-form-factor hard drives, 2.5-inch and below, consumers’ demand for storing more data on smaller devices has provided a strong impetus for us to pursue perpendicular recording with a greater sense of urgency.”

While the transition to perpendicular recording will start as early as the next product generation, Hitachi believes the true potential will be realized in the 200+ Gb/in2 – the point of technology maturation when meaningful advancements in storage capacity will ensure full-scale adoption of perpendicular recording technology.

Perpendicular Recording Field Test

As the hard drive industry approaches the crossroad of this major transition in data recording technology, Hitachi is prepared to lead the charge with new achievements on perpendicular recording and a worldwide field test program.

Testers have been using computing systems with perpendicular recording hard drives as part of their daily routine since December 2004. The program has revealed encouraging data about future mass-market adoption of the new technology, which Hitachi believes will gain momentum in 2006. Hitachi is taking the necessary steps to ensure a smooth transition to perpendicular recording through this extensive field test program and long-term reliability tests.

Professor Shun-ichi Iwasaki, president and the chief director, of Japan’s Tohoku Institute of Technology, is considered to be the father of modern perpendicular recording and is among the early testers of Hitachi’s perpendicular recording hard drives.

“I have been engaged in magnetic recording research since 1951 and found that the most important subject in this field is high-density recording,” said Professor Iwasaki. “Around 1975, I began to feel that the vertical direction was the right way to go to attain high-density recording, and began leading the activities to make perpendicular recording a practical technology. I am very glad to see that technology will come into use soon.”

Participants in Hitachi’s field test program are making history as one of the first people to write data vertically on a hard drive. These testers represent notable academia, industry luminaries and customers worldwide.

Field testers are using notebook systems from various manufacturers with the Hitachi Travelstar 2.5-inch drive. The data gleaned from this program will help Hitachi prepare for the eventual full-scale production of perpendicular recording hard drives. Hitachi expects to ship its first perpendicular recording product in 2005 on a 2.5-inch hard drive, used in notebook computers and handheld consumer electronics.

“The health of this industry over the next 5-10 years is critically tied to the successful implementation and transition to perpendicular recording technology,” said Jim Porter, hard drive industry analyst and historian, owner of DISK/TREND. “Hitachi is taking a responsible approach in assuring that it proceeds smoothly with extensive testing programs.”

In addition to the field test program, Hitachi has implemented a long-term reliability and stress testing regimen, involving hundreds of perpendicular recording drives over many months.

Pushing Back the “Superparamagnetic Limit”

With longitudinal recording, the hard drive industry is quickly approaching a physical barrier called the “superparamagnetic limit,” which occurs when the microscopic magnetic grains on the disk become so tiny that they are not strong enough to resist the various factors tending to demagnetize them. The result is that, over several years, the information written onto these magnetic grains can fade and become corrupted, rendering the storage device unreliable and unusable.

Simplistically, the data bits can be thought of as little dominoes. Longitudinal recording, as its name indicates, lays these dominoes (data bits) horizontally, taking up more space. In contrast, perpendicular recording sets up the dominoes on their edges, allowing more bits per square inch of disk surface, resulting in higher storage capacity overall.

Additional information on perpendicular recording can be found at this web site.

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In order to increase storage capacities, HGST is employing perpendicular recording, which Macworld describes as:

Perpendicular recording is perhaps the most significant near-term step in the evolution of hard-disk drive technology. The method is similar to the longitudinal recording used in today’s drives in that it relies on magnetically charged particles for data storage. In today’s drives, the north and south poles of the magnetic particles run parallel to the disc but in the new method they are arranged perpendicular to the disc, as the name suggests.

The result of this new arrangement is that each particle occupies a smaller area of the disk’s surface and so more particles can be crammed onto the disk. This is measured as the areal density and today’s most advanced drives can store between 100Gb (gigabits) and 120Gb of data in a square inch of disk space.

With this method, HGST envisions storage capacities of 230Gb per square inch by 2007. This technology would also enable the 1TB, 3.5-inch drive and 20GB, 1-inch drive. Hitachi is expected to officially announce their intentions later today.

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To achieve this aggressive growth rate, the company will tailor product development, customer support and marketing efforts to target three key consumer segments — MP3/personal media players (PMP), digital video recorders (DVR) and mobile phones. Already the leader in one-inch hard drives for MP3 players, Hitachi will apply that success formula to capture the PMP, DVR and mobile phone segments.

In 2005, Hitachi plans to more than double production of the one-inch Microdrive, including the newly announced smaller one-inch drive, “Mikey,” which is designed to spur the growth of hard-drive-based mobile phones.

Hitachi will also triple production of its 1.8-inch Travelstar product to further penetrate the music jukebox/PMP segment. With the recent announcement of “Slim” — Hitachi’s smaller 1.8-inch product — the company has received tremendous interest in the form factor, with demand potentially rivaling that of the one-inch Microdrive.

In addition, Hitachi plans to increase production of the 3.5-inch Deskstar product for CE applications by more than 50 percent. With enhanced video streaming functionality and 500 GB of storage, the Deskstar product line will provide a powerful storage solution for the DVR segment.

Industry analysts watching the adoption of hard disk drive in consumer electronics have recently predicted that 20-22 percent of all hard drives shipped in 2005 will go into CE devices as compared to 15 percent in 2004. In 2005, based on current data, Hitachi’s doubling of CE hard drive shipments is expected to surpass the overall industry projection.

“Hitachi’s strength in CE hard drives is now validated with IDC’s recent findings and provides a strong basis from which to accelerate our CE business in 2005,” said Bill Healy, senior vice president, product strategy and marketing, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies. “Hitachi’s intensified focus in the CE segment hard drive will mean good news for end-users as we work on developing smaller, high-capacity hard drives that are more rugged, require less power and cost less.”

“In 2004, Hitachi established a credible leadership position on the CE hard drive landscape,” said John Buttress, IDC research manager. “Hitachi’s aggressive plans for 2005 indicate a serious and strong commitment to maintaining a leadership position in this very competitive and high-growth segment.”

According to IDC, Hitachi was in first place in total hard drives shipped for CE devices in fourth quarter 2004 and in second place for the full year. Hitachi led the final quarter of year with 24.7 percent of the CE segment and finished the year with 19.8 percent.

To further support Hitachi’s push into the consumer electronics space, the company plans to expand both the number of retail products offered and the number of traditional and online stores through which they can be purchased. Hitachi plans these developments for the second quarter of this year.

Also as part of its 2005 CE strategy and announced separately, today, Hitachi will open five worldwide Hitachi Design Studios that will specialize in helping customers integrate hard drives into consumer electronic devices. By April, the centers will be open for business in Fujisawa, Japan; Havant, UK; Rochester, Minnesota; Shenzhen, China and Taipei, Taiwan. This strategic move will enable Hitachi to accelerate the adoption of hard drives in CE devices and lead the fastest-growing segment of the hard disk drive industry.

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