Seagate to make flash-based hard drives
Published: 23 Aug 2007 16:33 BST
Seagate Technology, the number-one maker of magnetic hard drives, will start manufacturing hard drives based around flash memory, according to its chief executive officer Bill Watkins.
"We are going to have a solid state drive, probably for enterprise first," Watkins said on Wednesday.
Seagate's decision is a significant turning point for the storage market. The flash versus magnetic debate has been the most high-profile issue in the storage world for the past two years.
Magnetic hard drives have been a crucial component for servers, PCs and notebooks for many years. They cost far less in terms of cost per gigabyte, and they typically hold more data than flash devices.
A 500GB desktop drive tends to sell for around $109 (£54) or roughly the same as two 4GB flash drives.
Flash memory makers, however, have been increasing the density of their products and lowering the price.
Notebooks with flash drives began appearing this year. Some flash manufacturers say blade servers will be next to implement their technology.
Flash consumes less energy, is more reliable and is faster at retrieving data, say its proponents.
Rather than trying to fight the trend, Seagate is going to cover all the bases by manufacturing flash drives. But it won't release the products immediately: the company is looking for a supplier of flash chips.
The number-one producer of flash is Samsung, but Samsung sells hard drives in competition with Seagate. There are however several other manufacturers of flash chips that aren't in competition with Seagate, and therefore might be more willing suppliers to Seagate.
Flash drives are unlikely to dominate the storage market, according to Watkins. But he said flash drives might account for around seven percent of the market.
Seagate currently makes hybrid drives, which are regular magnetic drives with some flash included. The company once owned part of flash giant SanDisk.
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