Western Digital to purchase SanDisk for $19 billion

[Scorpus]

Western Digital has today agreed to purchase flash storage company SanDisk in a deal worth around $19 billion, paving the way for the hard drive manufacturer to expand into the growing NAND market.

The deal will see Western Digital pay $86.50 per share for SanDisk, which includes $85.10 per share in cash, and "0.0176 of a Western Digital common share", according to a statement released to Bloomberg. Following the news, SanDisk shares rose 6.2% to $79.84 in pre-market trading, while trading of Western Digital shares was halted.

The buyout of SanDisk gives Western Digital a strong foothold in the growing NAND storage market, allowing the company to produce everything from solid state drives to memory cards. SanDisk is currently the third-largest producer of NAND flash in the world, behind Toshiba and industry leader Samsung.

Purchasing SanDisk makes perfect sense for Western Digital. While the company is one of the largest hard drive manufacturers, along with Seagate, the industry is slowly moving away from hard disk storage in favor of faster, smaller solid state drives. In their recent financial year, Western Digital saw sales decline by four percent as a sign of things to come.

Of course a deal of this magnitude isn't going to be completed immediately. Western Digital expects their $19 billion purchase of SanDisk to close in the third quarter of 2016, providing it gets the necessary approvals from regulatory bodies.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/62504-western-digital-buys-sandisk-19-billion.html

 

[DDG4005]

I must be the only PC enthusiast still using hard drives instead of SSDs for primary boot drives (and storage). While SSD capacities have gotten bigger I still prefer HDDs for their spaciousness.

 

[oldikes]

I must be the only PC enthusiast still using hard drives instead of SSDs for primary boot drives (and storage). While SSD capacities have gotten bigger I still prefer HDDs for their spaciousness.

Once I can get a reasonable amount of storage for the same price as to completely replace a hard drive is when I will switch to SSDs. I'm thinking a 512gb ssd for the price of a 1TB hdd. Possibly a 2TB hdd.

 

[Skidmarksdeluxe]

I must be the only PC enthusiast still using hard drives instead of SSDs for primary boot drives (and storage). While SSD capacities have gotten bigger I still prefer HDDs for their spaciousness.

I guess you are. There's really no reason not to be using a SSD these days but where there's life, there's hope.
While most ordinary enthusiasts still use mech drives for general storage, they'll use a SSD as a boot drive and the rest of the SSD storage for things they deem important for quick data transfer.

 

[Skidmarksdeluxe]

I'd like to know why SanDisk sold out to them, are they're struggling or expecting to soon?
If anything I would've thought it would've been the other way around.

 

[mailpup]

I must be the only PC enthusiast still using hard drives instead of SSDs for primary boot drives (and storage).

No, you're not.

 

[amstech]

Computers run slow as hell with spinners at boot drives. I don't work on PC's/Laptops for people anymore unless they have an SSD now.

 

[NeoFlux]

So used to SSD speed on my desktop... When people bring their PC's to check them, in most cases I think "It's so slow, there's definitely something wrong here.... oh, wait, it's HDD"

 

[NightAngel79]

Wow, a bit of elitism in these comments

I boot off of a SDD now, and decided to splurge on a 850 Pro 512gb. BUT, I also got a 4tb HDD. My system couldn't survive without both.

I'm also perfectly fine with my wife's older laptop that I upgraded to Win 10. And that's with a 5400 rpm HDD.

But with all things, to each their own.

 

[lipe123]

I'd like to know why SanDisk sold out to them, are they're struggling or expecting to soon?
If anything I would've thought it would've been the other way around.

Or the few people at the top can split the $19billion and retire?
I'd take that deal in a heartbeat, who wants to work for their entire lives when they have the option to accept the jackpot and retire.

 

[EClyde]

I am replacing most of my HD with SSD. Great prices on quality SSD's these days. I will keep the HD for backup. I keep some in the computer . some in the closet.

 

[umbala]

I must be the only PC enthusiast still using hard drives instead of SSDs for primary boot drives (and storage).

No, you're not.

No one is saying you need to choose one or the other. In fact, I don't know anyone who relies solely on SSDs for storage. Everyone I know has a bunch of mechanical drives, but most of them also have at least one SSD. I have over 40 TB of storage, but my SSD is only 120 GB and it's plenty for Windows and all the programs I run. The biggest increase in performance you're going to see today isn't from a faster processor or more memory, it's moving from a mechanical drive to an SSD. My programs and games literally open as soon as I click on them. One day eventually you'll get an SSD and then you'll slap yourself and say "Man, I could've had this kind of performance years ago!"

 

[kuroiei]

I still use plenty of HDDs for my renderfarm slaves. Loading scenes and textures takes a while - true, but they wouldn't benefit from SSDs at all. There's still place for spinners!

 

[Squid Surprise]

I'd like to know why SanDisk sold out to them, are they're struggling or expecting to soon?
If anything I would've thought it would've been the other way around.

I suspect they had about 19 BILLION reasons to sell.... When you're a publicly traded company and someone offers you that kind of coin (it was almost $10 a share over their "real" value), you have to have a pretty good reason to say "NO"....

 

[dividebyzero]

I'd like to know why SanDisk sold out to them, are they're struggling or expecting to soon?
If anything I would've thought it would've been the other way around.

SanDisk's stock price has been on the wane for a while....that is until Western Digital sold off a 15% stake in the company last month. While more than a few people wondered why at the time, at least some investors knew/suspected what was coming next. On the day before WD raised the capital, SanDisk was valued at $10bn. The day after, almost $12bn, and has been rising ever since.
SanDisk has been steadily losing market share (and revenue) for most of the year, and its debts cancel out its cash reserve/short term investments (both around the $2bn mark).

 

[GeforcerFX]

Depends on the system, I am fully laptops so I am limited by how many HDD's I can have in my system and all of them have to be 2.5" obviously. The one I have that can do 3 has a 256gb SSD a 1tb seagate 5400rpm sata drive. The DVD can be converted to a HDD enclosure but it's over IDE and has a 750gb WD 5400pm drive in there for files I am working on, I have another with 2 drives avaiable and it has a 128gb SSD and a 750gb 7200rpm drive. Everything else has one drive and most are platter. The increased boot speed is nice and all but I can wait the few extra seconds on a few things once I am in Windows.

 

[BlueDrake]

I must be the only PC enthusiast still using hard drives instead of SSDs for primary boot drives (and storage). While SSD capacities have gotten bigger I still prefer HDDs for their spaciousness.

I probably feel like one of the few, who use an SSHD instead of the more expected SSDs of today. 2TB SSHD for anything boot related, to various games or such there. While my catch all 2TB for backups or anything else, is a slower WD Green which isn't all that bad. I might hate myself for not having an SSD sooner but really, I think the best time to get one is likely.. during Black Friday or such.

 

[Skidmarksdeluxe]

SanDisk's stock price has been on the wane for a while....that is until Western Digital sold off a 15% stake in the company last month. While more than a few people wondered why at the time, at least some investors knew/suspected what was coming next. On the day before WD raised the capital, SanDisk was valued at $10bn. The day after, almost $12bn, and has been rising ever since.
SanDisk has been steadily losing market share (and revenue) for most of the year, and its debts cancel out its cash reserve/short term investments (both around the $2bn mark).

Thanks man. I knew I could leave it to you to fill me in on the nitty gritty seeing I don't follow the stock market. It makes sense to me now.

 

[dividebyzero]

Thanks man. I knew I could leave it to you to fill me in on the nitty gritty seeing I don't follow the stock market. It makes sense to me now.

I don't follow the market much either. I read about WD selling off a 15% stake in the company, but all my dot connecting was in hindsight after the initial buyout rumours surfaced last week. I'm late to the party again! Some people called it a couple of months ago.