Western Digital recently conducted its first quarter 2024 earning call and while most of the announcements were in tune with those of close competitor Seagate, who had a similar event a few days before, one of the things that caught everyone’s attention was that Western Digital was in the works to release a family of hard drives that will have a capacity of 40TB or more.
Seagate started off the fight by announcing that they are all set to release a 30TB Hard Drive as well as a 32TB Hard Drive in 2024, with a 50TB Hard Drive being tested in the labs for a future release. Western Digital’s recent announcement shows how neck and neck the two companies are in terms of technology and pace of release.
The current state of the market has Western Digital in the lead with a 26TB Ultra SMR drive already available, but not yet deployed to end users, and a 28TB nearline model undergoing qualifying before its release.
This announcement also follows Western Digital’s announcement earlier about separating their Hard Drive and SSD businesses. This way the two businesses will be listed separately, and there is also a general belief that the Hard Drive business is holding back the SSD one and this separation will allow both businesses to grow at their own pace.
There is also a belief that the businesses may be ripe for a takeover by one of the big NAND companies, but there is no concrete intent as of yet. However, the fact that the brands already collaborations amongst each other doesn’t;t make this news too far fetched.
It will be interesting to see who comes out on top in the enticing encounter. There is definitely no dearth of innovation from either Western Digital or Seagate, and whatever is the outcome, the end users are only going to benefit.
