Western Digital Reports Arbitration Decision, will Challenge the Award

[btarunr]

Western Digital Corp. today reported that on November 18, 2011, an arbitration award of $525 million was rendered against the company by a sole arbitrator in a pending confidential arbitration action in Minnesota. The amount of the award does not include prejudgment interest, which will be subsequently determined. The award involves claims brought by Seagate Technology LLC against WD and one employee who was formerly employed by Seagate, alleging misappropriation of confidential information and trade secrets.

"We do not believe there is any basis in law or fact for the damage award of the arbitrator," said John Coyne, president and chief executive officer. "We believe the company acted properly at all times and we will vigorously challenge the award. This does not affect our ability to conduct our operations, to complete the recovery and recommencement of our Thailand operations or, subject to obtaining the required regulatory approvals, to consummate our planned acquisition of Hitachi GST."

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[NdMk2o1o]

Wow, interesting, wonder what it is referring to, perhaps someone inside seagate who then went to WD with some of their ideas? seems like a possibility

 

[btarunr]

Wow, interesting, wonder what it is referring to, perhaps someone inside seagate who then went to WD with some of their ideas? seems like a possibility

Yes, that's exactly what Seagate is alleging. Not stolen intellectual property, but trade secrets (how to win OEM clients, etc., etc).

 

[Jarman]

Make a disk that cant match a samsung gogogogo

 

[Dr. Nick]

I bet $500M would be enough to open a manufacturing plant outside of Asia. Maybe somewhere inland where flooding and earthquakes occur less often. I bet it would give Seagate a stranglehold on the market.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Make a disk that cant match a samsung gogogogo

They already do that.

A samsung Spinpoint F3 is the fastest hard drive out there. Even a WD 7200rpm black edition cant touch it

 

[Jarman]

Sarcasm too strong for london??

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Sarcasm too strong for london??

 

[BorgOvermind]

They already do that.

A samsung Spinpoint F3 is the fastest hard drive out there. Even a WD 7200rpm black edition cant touch it

That is incorrect.
The direct transfer record for a 7200RPM is held by the 2WD 2TB black (previous model).
Did you consider access time ?
Also, the black is a lot more reliable.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

That is incorrect.
The direct transfer record for a 7200RPM is held by the 2WD 2TB black (previous model).
Did you consider access time ?
Also, the black is a lot more reliable.

Proof???

Here are my results for the samsung F3 just a small run of HD Tune Pro and Crystal Disk.

-----

As for reliablility. I think thats more of a subjective thing. I have used and built a lot of rigs for clients with samsung hard drives exclusively for the previous 4 or 5 years and all ive had are 2 failures. one of them was my F1 that failed after more then a year of use, and the other was a clients rig that failed within 6months (it was an F3)

 

[Widjaja]

It's all just luck of the draw when it comes down to reliability.

If ther is something I have noticed with WD recently, is the amount of their drives being found in pre-built machines compared to a couple of years ago.

A couple of years ago I would often find pre-built desktops of many manufacturers to have odd ball sized seagate drives in them which are most likely hard drives which have had the bad sectors blocked off.

Now more often than not, I see WD Green power drives in these pre-built desktops.

Also I have seen many laptops of recent to have WD over Seagate instead of the other way around like a couple of years ago.

Regardless of the brand and tier of drive in the laptop....you drop it, you break it.
You get frustrated at the laptop and punch the keyboard, you will most likely break the drive.