Following their press releases issued on May 23, 2012 and June 14, 2012, Seagate Technology plc and LaCie S.A. announced today the completion of the purchase by Seagate of all of the shares of Philippe Spruch and his affiliate, representing 64.5% of the outstanding shares of LaCie for a provisional price of €4.05 per share. The price payable to Philippe Spruch and his affiliate may be increased by 3%, to €4.17 per share, in the event that within six months following today's date, Seagate holds at least 95% of the share capital and voting rights of LaCie.

The completion of the transaction follows the required clearances from the French Ministry of Finance and the US and German Antitrust Authorities.

As a result of the completion of the transaction, Seagate intends to file in the coming weeks with the French Autorité des marches financiers an all-cash simplified tender offer on the remaining LaCie shares.

As previously announced, Ricol Lasteyrie & Associés has been appointed as independent expert by the Board of Directors of LaCie on May 23, 2012.

Following discussions with the Board of Directors of LaCie, in particular with the independent members, Seagate has increased the proposed offer price at which it will file its tender offer to €4.50 per LaCie share (without an additional 3% price supplement in the event that a squeeze-out procedure is implemented). Seagate may carry out a squeeze-out procedure at the same price of €4.50 per LaCie share if it were to hold at least 95% of the shares and voting rights of LaCie.

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Thermaltake, being the industry pioneer brand with expertise in PC chassis, power supply and thermal solution, introduces the Muse 5G series, the next-generation external hard drive enclosure for authors, scientists and artists in the 21st century to unite their power and soul by collecting and protecting all precious inspiration.

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Thermaltake Muse is named after the 9 goddesses of Greek mythology, poetry and literature. The goddesses are considered the source of knowledge that became the representatives of poetry, the arts and science, and sources of inspiration. Thermaltake, carring the corporate mission of  "delivering the perfect user experience",has insight into the importance and the power of knowledge, thus specially developed the Muse 5G series in a high quality aluminum housing to provide a better heat dissipation as well as an elegant look like the goddesses we all have imagined.

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toshiba_al13se_series_hdd.pngToshiba’s Storage Products Business Unit, a division of Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc., and a committed technology leader, today announced the AL13SE series of 2.5-inch 6Gb/s SAS interface hard disk drives (HDDs), which offer enterprise-class performance in capacities ranging from 900GB to 300GB.

The AL13SE is the first 10,000 RPM class model enterprise drive from Toshiba to achieve 900GB capacity and is also the first of Toshiba’s 10,000 RPM drives to employ a dual-stage head positioning actuator that provides additional performance gains, including a 32% increase in sustained transfer rate.

Designed for even the most demanding mission-critical applications, the AL13SE series features an operating reliability rating of 2,000,000 power-on hours, a 25% increase over prior-generation drives. System compatibility is also assured through usage of the industry-standard 512 byte sector size.

In keeping with Toshiba’s leadership in power efficiency design, the AL13SE Series uses Supported Enhanced Power Condition State technology to lower RPM idle speed.

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wd_red_nas_hdd.pngWestern Digital, a storage industry leader, today announced the debut of WD Red NAS hard drives, an innovative line of SATA hard drives specifically designed for home and small office NAS (network attached storage) systems with one to five drive bays. Compatibility-tested with top NAS box manufacturers and optimized for power and performance, WD Red hard drives are now shipping in 3.5-inch 1 TB, 2 TB and 3 TB capacities.

The WD Red line features NASware technology, designed to improve reliability and system performance, reduce customer downtime and to simplify the integration process. This new product line addresses the unique environment of NAS and the growing demand for affordable, reliable and compatible storage that reduces customer total cost of ownership. WD Red hard drives also feature 3D Active Balance Plus, an enhanced balance control technology, which significantly improves the overall drive performance and reliability. In an exclusive for WD Red customers, WD is offering free premium 24x7 dedicated support and a three-year limited warranty.

The addition of WD Red expands WD's "Power of Choice" client hard drive solutions. WD recognizes that customers and their applications are diverse and they should be empowered to choose the drives that best suit their specific storage needs. With distinguishable colors, the "Power of Choice" storage solutions are clear and easy to identify: WD Blue (solid performance and reliability for everyday computing), WD Green (cool, quiet, eco-friendly), WD Black (maximum performance for power computing) and WD Red (home and small office NAS). The four colors enable quick selection of the best WD drive for customers' application or usage requirements.

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Verbatim is unveiling the first Store ‘n’ Go Universal Storage Module (USM) Portable Hard Drive, a completely flexible and upgradable storage solution. The new Store ‘n’ Go USM can be connected using a choice of interface cables such as USB 3.0, FireWire or Thunderbolt™ or directly using the SATA interface. The new USM Hard Drive comes with a complementary USB 3.0 USM cable and is available now in retail stores.

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Verbatim‘s Store ‘n’ Go USM Portable Hard Drive provides the user with the maximum flexibility. When used as PC HDD storage, the USM can be connected in the same way as any standard external USB hard disk drive by using the included USB 3.0 cable. The optionally available FireWire800, eSATA and Thunderbolt™ cables provide the user with the possibility to choose between various other computer interfaces.

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Buffalo Technology, a global leader in the design, development and manufacturing of wired and wireless networking and network and direct attached storage solutions, today announced the availability of 4 TB hard drives in select Buffalo storage solutions including the TeraStation 5000 series of business-class network and iSCSI storage, the LinkStation Pro home and small office network storage device and the DriveStation Axis USB 3.0 desktop hard drive.

"The introduction of 4 TB hard drives and Buffalo's early adoption in leading storage solutions provides customers with even higher capacities for greater data storage," said Matt Dargis, senior director of sales at Buffalo Technology. "We strive to provide a breadth of affordable and reliable storage solutions for business and home in the latest available hard drive capacities."

Now shipping with 4 TB hard drives, the TeraStation 5000 series is available in a two-drive or four-drive array, packed with business class features such as surveillance video management, Active Directory support, disk quota support, share level replication, failover support, dual gigabit Ethernet ports, hot-swap hard drives, iSCSI targeting and USB 3.0 accessory support, ideal for larger networks and business-critical applications.

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Buffalo Technology, a global leader in the design, development and manufacturing of wired and wireless networking and network and direct attached storage solutions, today announced the availability of the MiniStation Thunderbolt / USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive. Demonstrated earlier this month at Computex in Taiwan, the MiniStation Thunderbolt is the world's first portable Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 dual-interface external drive solution. With the flexibility of either SuperSpeed USB 3.0 or a lighting fast Thunderbolt connection, the MiniStation Thunderbolt is ideal for PC and Mac® users looking for the fastest interface speeds while preserving backward compatibility with existing devices that support USB 2.0.

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"With the creation and transferring of digital content accelerating at ever increasing paces, protecting that data on the go continues to be a challenge for all types of users," said Brian Verenkoff, director of marketing at Buffalo Technology. "With the MiniStation Thunderbolt, consumers can now move or backup digital assets faster, simplify connections between devices, maintain compatibility with nearly any device and foster new and exciting ways to use portable storage."

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G-Technology today announced a new line of portable and desktop USB 3.0 storage solutions for a broad range of users from consumers to audio/video professionals. Given the brand's strength in the content creation and Apple Mac® community, G-Technology is well positioned to move the Mac industry forward in leveraging high-capacity, high-performance USB 3.0 drives across a variety of customer segments, all while delivering one of the industry's most respected external storage platforms with proven quality, reliability and performance.

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Today, new kinds of devices and media formats require considerably more interface bandwidth and higher transfer rates to move, store and edit data quickly. Backward compatible with USB 2.0, G-Technology's USB 3.0 drives deliver speeds 10 times faster than USB 2.0 and six times faster than FireWire 800. This means that users can now transfer two full-length movies from a G-Technology USB 3.0 drive to a computer in minutes.

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Seagate Technology plc today introduced Backup Plus storage devices – its reinvented consumer storage product family that delivers the easiest setup, one-click backup and the ability to save and share your content on Facebook and Flickr.

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Seagate Backup Plus hard drives are newly designed external storage that work interchangeably with both Windows® and Apple® computers and deliver new features to protect, share and save nearly every aspect of one’s digital life. These products come loaded with the new hassle-free Seagate Dashboard software for one-click local backup making it easier than ever to eliminate excuses or apprehensions about backing up one’s most valuable digital content. Seagate Backup Plus products are the world’s first external hard drives to provide backup for content on social networks, such as Facebook and Flickr. Storing a local duplicate copy of photos from social networks is now as easy as backing up files on your computer. Seagate Backup Plus will provide the peace of mind that every aspect of one’s digital life is safe from loss.

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Seagate Technology, the worldwide leader in hard disk drives and storage solutions, and LaCie S.A., a leading manufacturer of consumer storage products, today announced an exclusive agreement with the intent for Seagate to acquire a controlling interest in LaCie. Seagate has offered to purchase from Philippe Spruch, LaCie’s chairman and CEO, and his affiliate, all of their shares, representing 64.5% of the outstanding shares of LaCie. Following receipt of governmental approvals and the close of this transaction, Seagate would commence an all-cash simplified tender offer (followed as the case may be by a squeeze-out procedure) to acquire the remaining outstanding shares in accordance with the General Regulation of the French Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF).

Seagate has offered Mr. Spruch and his affiliate €4.05 per share in cash, minus a potential adjustment depending on the cash and debt position of LaCie at closing. This price may be increased by a possible price supplement of 3% in the event that the threshold of 95% of the shares and voting rights of LaCie would be reached by Seagate within 6 months following closing, resulting in a maximum potential price per LaCie share of €4.17. Without the price supplement, the offer currently values LaCie at an approximate €146 million, or $186 million total equity value, including acquired net cash of approximately €49 million, or $65 million, as of March 31, 2012. The €4.05 per share price represents a premium of 29% to LaCie’s average closing stock price over the 30 trading days ended May 22, 2012.

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