Solid State Drives have really come into their own over the past couple of years, as evidenced by the fast growing adoption rate amongst enthusiasts and prosumers. Hard drives have traditionally been the bottleneck in a PC, and fast NAND flash access speeds can make even an obsolete system shine. However, not everyone can afford the pricey cost of SSDs or their capacity limitations. The answer for this is hybrid hard drives. Hybrid hard drives combine high-density, large capacity platters with NAND flash memory. This allows it to combine the fast access speeds of NAND with the cheap bulk storage  [ Read More ]

Flooding in Thailand has wreaked havoc on the hard-drive supply chain, and shortages are likely into 2012. Seagate facilities were largely unscathed, but the company said that its “ability to manufacture hard-disk drives has been impacted due to external component supply constraints.” Nevertheless, Seagate’s outlook is looking strong. Seagate said that it will ship about 43 million units in the December quarter (fiscal second quarter) with revenue of $2.8 billion. Wall Street was expecting revenue of $2.69 billion. Seagate also said that its margins would be 150 to 300 basis points ahead of its historical range of 22 percent to  [ Read More ]

Disruption at more than a dozen hard disk drive (HDD) factories due to flooding in Thailand means PC manufacturers should prepare for significant supply shortages, according to analyst and market research firm IDC. Worldwide hard drive shipments could suffer a 20 percent decline beginning in the middle of this month and extending well into the first quarter of 2012, according to a new IDC report. In the first half of 2011, Thailand accounted for 40 to 45 percent of worldwide HDD production. As of early November, nearly half of Thailand’s production was directly affected by the flooding. While production at  [ Read More ]