Western Digital buys SanDisk for 19 billion dollars

[Espinetenbolas]

Western Digital buys SanDisk for $19 billion and sets its sights on SSD drives

We started hearing about this possibility two days ago, and now the details have been confirmed: Western Digital has bought SanDisk for a total of $19 billion. The world's largest hard drive manufacturer has thus acquired the resources of one of the leading companies in the memory segment.

It seems that SanDisk had been looking for potential offers for some time, and both Western Digital and Micron were candidates for that acquisition. In the end, it was WD that acquired a company for which it will pay $86.50 per share, which is 15% of the value of the shares at the close of trading on Tuesday.

A touchy situation... apparently because it couldn't afford to buy Samsung, which has 1/3 of the SSD market share :troll:

**
WD press release: October 21, 2015-Western Digital Announces Acquisition Of SanDisk**

[cobito]

In a couple of years, there will be 3 or 4 companies left selling SSDs, just like what happened with hard drives and eventually happens with everything...

[Sylver]

Samsung SSDs are currently still at the top for several obvious reasons, although their main handicap is the high price they present. However, they back it up with a wide guarantee that, honestly, is appreciated.

The question is to see if now WD, entering strongly in the sector, tries to present battle to the top models of Samsung at a more competitive price, which if so, as a user it will make me very happy.

Greetings

[whoololon]

Good news and even better its impact.
Samsung has not only led the SSD industry, but it has done so very honorably with a pretty reasonable quality/price ratio.
That being said, WD's move was a big challenge, since SanDisk is no small fry in memory manufacturing (remember that it supplied Sony in the mid-90s), and its quality is very high.

Let's hope for that: a fierce fight from both sides to innovate and become the market leader. Our machines and our wallets will thank us greatly. ;D

[kynes]

WD is buying its long-term survival. They don't have the flash factories, nor the technology, so they are jumping off the sinking ship (magnetic disks) by buying a transatlantic liner.

I don't think their interest is to lower prices, I suppose they will want to take advantage of their distribution channel (a very important point in the video surveillance sector) and gradually replace magnetic disks with solid ones in their catalog.

[Bm4n]

Anyway, I don't understand why these old companies take so long to realize that they are going in circles. They could have bought a memory manufacturer a long time ago and injected money into R&D, now buying Sandisk has turned out to be a joke. Of course, WD has it easy, as soon as they put their stickers on any Sandisk SSD, it will sell twice as well...

Sent from my iPad with Tapatalk

[Espinetenbolas]

I think the move is about covering all bases in case Intel and Micron come out with their 3D XPoint in a couple of months… if we look at the QUESITO between the two, they are barely at 15% market share right now... SAMSUNG can't be bought and what they sell could become obsolete overnight:... buy SanDisk before Seagate does :troll:

It's a clear case of survival and they've probably known for a long time that they would end up doing this, but for me it's all about Intel and Micron... they've spent a fortune on R&D and they're going to make a big splash:

It's clear that it's going to bring the price of Nand down a lot... but a lot, a lot and that's what could disrupt the magnetic hard drive market.

In fact, Samsung said they would have 4TB drives by early 2016:

Just a couple more layers to that V-NAND 3D and they'll be at 6 or 8TB in a few months.

[whoololon]

@Espinetenbolas:

[…] It is clear that it is going to lower the price of the Nand a lot… but a lot a lot and that is what can burst the market of magnetic hard drives.

In fact Samsung said that it would have 4TB disks for the beginning of 2016[…]

Great!

[krampak]

Very interesting that 3D XPoint, the difference at depth 1 is very considerable (which is, after all, the depth at which we usually operate, then they sell you benchmarks at queue depth 32 with astronomical numbers...

[Espinetenbolas]

I think the market will fragment into two:

• System drive with 3D XPoint technology (for what is now used by SSDs)
• Data drive with Nand technology (storage)

Not now, but when Nand drive manufacturers see that they can't compete in performance with 3D XPoint, they have to drop prices and focus on storage... it will be at that moment when the drop in price per GB gives the final blow to magnetic drives, which may be able to survive one or two years in low-end equipment until the price per GB is the same or simply the capacity of SSDs with Nand is much superior... in fact, both situations can occur at the same time since the price depends on the density of each chip... more layers V-Nand -> denser -> cheaper -> lower price per GB

In the end, it is a matter of cost reduction and competitiveness.

[Sylver]

Well, let those who need to lower their prices today do so, whether they are SSDs, magnetic or orthopedic, as the video library is filling up at a rapid pace and we can't keep up :ugly:

Best regards!

[Espinetenbolas]

@Sylver:

…that the video library is filling up at a rapid pace and we can't keep up here

:troll::troll::troll:

:troll::troll::troll:

or a classic:

:troll::troll::troll: