Fujitsu to hand over hard drive division, self-respect to Western Digital

It's prom night, and Fujitsu wants to give it all up to Western Digital. And we're talking everything: if the sordid deal goes through, by the end of the year Fujitsu will have sold its entire hard disk division to WD, giving the maker of the exquisitely named Caviar almost thirty percent of the market, second only to Seagate's thirty-five percent. So look out, Seagate! But who will the real winners be? That's right: the consumer. Because the rampant monopolization of every aspect of the computer industry can only be a good thing. Just ask those fat cats in Washington.

[michas_pi @ Oct 2nd 2008 8:46AM]

At least Western Digital doesn't want Hitachi and their DeathStars.

[web2.oh @ Oct 2nd 2008 1:00PM]

Oh for christ's sake shut the hell up about the "death star" drives. That was one particular model of hard drive EIGHT YEARS AGO, before IBM sold it's hard drive division to Hitachi.

The IBM DeathStar fiasco should only be mentioned in a historical context these days.

[fallbreak @ Oct 2nd 2008 8:58AM]

There are talks ongoing and NOTHING has been decided yet:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601080&sid=ag6l6LSfAjGQ&refer=asia

[Hideki @ Oct 2nd 2008 9:00AM]

Hihi

At one time, around a third of all failed hard disks I had in for repair were Western Digital Caviar drives, most of them had the same failure mode too which involved the drive repeatedly smashing its heads off the stops at irregular intervals, fun -.o

[Wwhat @ Oct 2nd 2008 4:23PM]

I think you should investigate your supplier and shipping and their/your staff because that's not what the rest of the world has as experience with WD and I think there was something peculiar going on along your supply chain.

[ishism @ Oct 2nd 2008 8:08PM]

Wwhat is correct. I have bought from a few online retailers and the problem with these defective hard drives is cheap wrapping and the courier banged up the package during shipping. I know from experience.

[BananaBoat @ Oct 3rd 2008 12:45AM]

I've had 10+ HDD's from WD over the years, and I've yet to have a problem. When you take poor shipping into account, things get pretty dicey. The head on an HDD is a hairs width from the platter, and one sharp jolt (say, as the UPS guy is throwing it into his truck) is all it takes to ruin your drive. It's a shame that brick and mortar retailers (now that CompUSA is gone) can't hope to carry nearly as much stock, or as varied a stock, as online retailers. Couple that with there being zero tax at places like Amazon and Newegg, and the often free shipping, and you have a perfect storm, where buying from a brick and mortar would almost be stupid.

To say nothing of Hideki's problem (that line may have been defective, it happens) it's about time that online retailers of computer parts started marking their boxes as fragile. When the box containing my ram, HDD, motherboard, etc came from UPS, the driver basically dropped it from how high it was when he was carrying, down to the hard concrete ground. Unfortunately, my 40 pound steel Antec 1200 was also in the box with those light components. Luckily nothing was damaged, but I could have cried when he did it. Had it said Fragile, I doubt he would have been so negligent (or if hadn't weighed 40 pounds, and he hadn't been out of shape and over encumbered by a mere 40 pounds).

[rjrawlings @ Oct 3rd 2008 5:26PM]

don't low rank him because the wd drives he has used have crapped out on him. I have had tons of problems with wd as well. i have had four hard drive failures with that horrible brand. never had a problem in any of me seagate hard drives. they were all purchased on newegg and were all shipped the same way!

[TIm @ Oct 2nd 2008 9:01AM]

Do you have to bring your love for apple in a hard drive article. When you grow up you will understand that microsoft made a better product that fits mostly everyone needs. You are a closed minded as apple.

[PeterF @ Oct 2nd 2008 9:06AM]

What? Apple isn't mentioned in the article.

[Nick @ Oct 2nd 2008 9:16AM]

He's talking about the monopoly comment about washington.

[Patriks7 @ Oct 2nd 2008 9:20AM]

Well surprise surprise!
You're the first one to bring up Apple in this article!

[MattyG @ Oct 2nd 2008 9:12AM]

about time fuji, give your business to someone who can actually make hard drives

[I LOVE THE CAPS LOCK KEY @ Oct 3rd 2008 1:17AM]

What are you talking about? For years, Fujitsu made some of the fastest enterprise class drives that could out pace an enterprise WD Raptor or Seagate of the same generation and class. Even though they had a very small almost invisible retail presence, they were big with lots of OEMs.

Fujitsu's Drives are legendary for their performance, they will be missed.

[linuxamp @ Oct 2nd 2008 9:30AM]

Does "entire hard disk division" include SSD? SSD is a rapidly growing market that's already beginning to eat away at HDD's share. Since Fujitsu is #6 in HDD it is a very wise strategic move to sell off their HDD division and try to put more effort into SSD.

[I LOVE THE CAPS LOCK KEY @ Oct 3rd 2008 1:21AM]

Hard disk is not the same as Solid State Disk. It's their hard disc division that is for sale (negotiation).

I think Fujitsu sees the writing on the wall and SSD's will be the future of high performance storage which has been their forte` since the beginning of their presence in the marketplace. My guess is they are changing their focus over to silicon and they won't be totally absent from the shifting marketplace.

[Bad Beaver @ Oct 2nd 2008 10:02AM]

Did WD start making halfway safe drives again lately?

[Salsa Shark @ Oct 2nd 2008 2:34PM]

I'll take a WD any day of the week over those crappy Seagate Barracudas that are notorious for seized spindles...

[kal326 @ Oct 2nd 2008 10:11AM]

I can only see good things from this. Fujitsu has quite a bit of experience in enterprise drives, one area where WD has very little except the entry level raptor series. So if WD gets that information it can continue to trickle down the enterprise level tech and reliability to consumer level drives like the Black and Raptor series. Better drives at cheaper prices, I for one would like to see a 15k desktop drives in the next few years.

[tuaamin13 @ Oct 2nd 2008 10:16AM]

Wow...

It's not monopolization, it's consolidation. There's a difference. As you noted, WD will have 30% of the market if this goes through. Seagate has 35%. That still leaves 35% of the market unaccounted for. Definitely not a monopoly.

Now if we saw Seagate buy WD, or WD buy Seagate, then we could claim it's getting to be a monopoly.

[notYou @ Oct 2nd 2008 10:41AM]

Engadget: "But who will the real winners be? That's right: the consumer."

How does a reduction in competitors benefit the consumer? If that were the case, why don't we just have one company make everything and be done with it.

[Anthony @ Oct 2nd 2008 11:14AM]

They were being facetious.

Truth is- WD had green disks available before anyone else. That I like.

Sometimes economies of scale do benefit the consumer, but competition keeps margins low.

[christian @ Oct 2nd 2008 11:15AM]

Uhh, he was being sarcastic and stuff.

[Big Bad Bun-gee Cord @ Oct 2nd 2008 11:29AM]

Fujitsu makes hard drives? I like egg salad...

[crow610 @ Oct 2nd 2008 12:21PM]

"Losers always wine about their best, winners go home and f*ck the prom queen"

[Montusama @ Oct 2nd 2008 3:55PM]

Well, if the deal goes thru Western Digital along with the other manufactures, HItachi, Seagate, and Samsung (oh yeah...Toshiba too) won't have to compete as much, but they won't risk price fixing the worst that will happen is they all make more money and price per drive doesn't lower as much as it has been.....

Also does Fujitsu make any desktop drives? I thought they exited that business because the lack of "profits" in it

[Wwhat @ Oct 2nd 2008 4:24PM]

Meanwhile all local shops here stopped selling WD's and went for samsung drives because people are cheapskates and rather pay 5 bucks less.

[Gary Davis @ Oct 3rd 2008 2:18AM]

Sordid deal? Fat Cats in Washington? Somehow I think you started writing about the yet to be confirmed deal between Fujitsu and Western Digital immediately after reading about the latest escapades in Washington and just coud not shake loose from the gall of it all. I can't really understand your vitriol. The hard drive industry has been consolidating almost since it's inception. At one time there were then a hundred hard drive manufacturers. The technology press and financial press have been openly talking about further consolidation for some time and it has been an expectation to most of us in the industry. What is "sordid" about the prospect of Western Digital acquiring those operations from Fujitsu (assuming it's true). Companies acquire...and divest...all of the time.

[zahid @ Nov 13th 2008 11:57PM]

Fujitsu is launghing this new drive

Eco-friendly Hard Disk Drives by Fujitsu, Logitec