Seagate Acquires Samsung's Hard Drive Business for $1.4 Billion Discussion

Seagate announced that the company has officially gained Samsung's storage drive business today, including assets, employees, and infrastructure. The assets included Samsung's popular M8 product line of hard drives.

Read the full content of this Article: Seagate Acquires Samsung's Hard Drive Business for $1.4 Billion

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Hmm ... so ... I wonder how that will affect the average buyer on a practical level?

 

In the short term, there won't be an obvious impact because the HDD market is still recovering from the losses sustained during the floods in Thailand.

Long term ... well, it means less competition in the HDD market which "might" lead to fewer price drops and "might" lead to less innovation in the HDD market, but it's too early to tell.

The SSD market still has tons of competition and the interest/demand for SSDs is growing (particularly in notebooks) so this move helps Seagate strengthen its HDD business but it may or may not help Seagate's hybrid drive or SSD business.

 

How would this affect warranties and such on Samsung drives?

 

I'm sure they'll honor their warranties as Samsung is a major company, you may just have to jump through hoops if you need warranty work.

 

I contacted Seagate about the question of warranty/service on Samsung drives. I'll post their response here as soon as I get an official answer.

And here it is:

Seagate will handle all customer support and warranty concerns for Samsung HDDs now.

 

I thought Samsung took pride in being vertically integrated as much as they are? Any one have some insight on this?

 

Thank you for the reply.

 

I really take pride in both of my Samsung drives in my M18x. Recently I purchased a 512GB 830 series SSD that I have yet to install. The quality/reliability off Sammy drives is second to none. I can't say the same about Seagate. I've had nothing but problems over the years from their HDD, hybrids & external drives.

What a sad sad day

 

I also have more confidence in Samsung HDDs than the Seagate ones. However, if Seagate take what is best in the Samsung technology and build on it then they should improve the quality of their product line-up.

It's not many years since Samsung first produced HDDs. Presumably they see a better long-term future with SSDs and now look on HDDs as a distraction. It's probably increasingly expensive to further develop the HDD technology and the manufacturers are more likely to invest if they have a bigger share of the market.

I'm still waiting for someone to produce a real hybrid drive with, say, 128GB SSD + a single 500GB platter in a 9.5mm thick unit. I thought that Samsung might produce something.

John

 

Yeah I've had good experiences with SpinPoint drives, but bad with 7200.XX drives.

WD FTW!

 

The hard drive industry has notoriously low profit margins, so it's no surprise that Seagate, with its larger HDD operation, would seek to buy it from Samsung. It makes sense for Samsung, because from their point of view, SSDs are probably the "next" thing, with HDD demand decreasing due to the proliferation of tablets and ultraportables.

This sort of thing's been happening for quite some time. Western Digital has recently acquired Hitachi (which had previously acquired IBM's HDD business). Seagate had acquired Maxtor a while back as well.

 

Hmz, so the next momentus XT will likely have a sumsung influenced controller and maybe their NAND?

 

The Market consolidation continues ... The HDD Biz is very tough and only the strong survive.
Anyone remember Quantum - Maxtor acquired them in 2001 only to be swallowed by Seagate.

 

I am not happy to hear that Seagate has bought Samsung and WD will be buying Hitachi. Now, we only have two major players left in the HDD market. Its because of less competition that both can get away with very anti-consumer practices such as recently drastically cutting the warranties on all future hard drives. If they don't have faith in their own products, how can I?

I feel quite pessimistic about the HDD industry for the consumers, of course its good for these large, soulless corporations.

I'm glad there's still fierce competition at least in the SSD market. Now, if only they'd drop to the dollar per GB ratio as HDDs so I could finally get one.

 

Are they cutting warranties? I've always bought WD black or RE drives specifically for their great 5 warranty service. That's a shame if they are planning on reducing drive warranty periods.

 

Yes. Some drives are having their warranties cut from 5 years down to 1 year.
DailyTech - Seagate Joins Western Digital in HDD Warranty Massacre, Doubles Down with 1-Year Warranties

This is probably the most obvious anti-consumer move to come out of industry consolidation that I've ever seen. I can't say I'll be buying any drive that has less than a 3-year warranty.

 

Same, I trust in Samsung's drivers and have better confidence in Samsung than in Seagate.

However, with them cutting down warranties perhaps, I see them leaning towards their same ways.