The two companies have been competing for years, however the market is changing due to different types of storage now available, it is thought that hard-disk drive shipments will drop by about 4 percent this quarter, which many believe is mainly due to the influx of tablets which use solid-state disk and flash storage instead.

Last year Western Digital attempted to buy Seagate, however there were concerns surrounding antitrust issues therefore no deal ever materialized, it is thought that Western Digital will now target Seagate’s enterprise customers.

Before any talk of acquisitions arose Western Digital was the largest hard-drive manufacturer, Seagate was the second largest and Hitachi third, this deal surely means that Western Digital will undoubtedly be the largest manufacturer of had drives for years to come.

According to Bloomberg WD shipped 52.2 million drives in Q4 2010, Seagate came close with 48.9 million shipped units and Hitachi came in third place with 30.3 million units shipped, it is hard to see how Seagate will battle a company who will have such a large part of the HDD market, but Seagate has been around for 31 years and will undoubtedly plan to keep pushing forward with larger, faster and quieter drives.

If you would like to read more about this deal check out Bloomberg for full details.

More About: hitachi, Seagate, Western Digital

For more Product-Reviews.net coverage:

• Follow Product Reviews on Twitter
• Become a Fan on Facebook
• Subscribe to PR
• Download our free apps for iPhone and iPad

Western Digital are one of the leading brands of external hard drives, and we have some information on the 500GB WD My Passport Hard Drive, which can be identified by it’s model number – WDBAAA5000ABKWM.

This hard drive can be bought for around $70-$120 at the moment, but it is very likely that you’ll find this particular model discounted during the busy shopping period which kicks off next week. It is plug and play compatible, and also comes with a visual backup control center and hardware encryption and password encryption facilities.

If you are interested in picking up this particular model, you are advised to read some reviews for it first. You’ll be pleased to know that there are almost 300 user reviews over at Amazon, with consumers giving their honest thoughts on the device, and whether it is a definite purchase, or an item to avoid.

Take a look at the reviews over at Amazon here, you’ll find them towards the bottom of the page.

If any of you already own one of these hard drives, let us know your thoughts on it. Would you recommend it for others to buy, or do you regret your purchase?

More About: Hard Drives, Western Digital, Western Digital WDAAA5000ABK

For more Product-Reviews.net coverage:

• Follow Product Reviews on Twitter
• Become a Fan on Facebook
• Subscribe to PR
• Download our free apps for iPhone and iPad