wd logoWestern Digital Corporation and SanDisk Corporation today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Western Digital will acquire all of the outstanding shares of SanDisk for a combination of cash and stock. The offer values SanDisk common stock at $86.50 per share or a total equity value of approximately $19 billion, using a five-day volume weighted average price ending on October 20, 2015 of $79.60 per share of Western Digital common stock. If the previously announced investment in Western Digital by Unisplendour Corporation Limited closes prior to this acquisition, Western Digital will pay $85.10 per share in cash and 0.0176 shares of Western Digital common stock per share of SanDisk common stock; and if the Unisplendour transaction has not closed or has been terminated, $67.50 in cash and 0.2387 shares of Western Digital common stock per share of SanDisk common stock. The transaction has been approved by the boards of directors of both companies.

The combination is the next step in the transformation of Western Digital into a storage solutions company with global scale, extensive product and technology assets, and deep expertise in non-volatile memory (NVM). With this transaction, Western Digital will double its addressable market and expand its participation in higher-growth segments. SanDisk brings a 27-year history of innovation and expertise in NVM, systems solutions and manufacturing. The combination also enables Western Digital to vertically integrate into NAND, securing long-term access to solid state technology at lower cost.

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ZOTAC International, a global innovator and leading manufacturer of graphics cards, ZBOX Mini PCs, and Solid State Drives (SSDs), ramps up a new line of storage aimed at offering enduring speed in desktops, notebooks, and external storage as it becomes an essential to every PC. 

zotac premium edition ssd

Available in 240GB and 480GB capacities, the Premium Edition SSDs bring with it a suite of features. At the heart sits a quad-core Phison SSD controller and outstanding MLC NAND for marathon reliability with up to 480 TBW and up to 3,000 PE cycles. With robust performance delivering sequential read/write speeds of up to 520MBps and 500MBps, the Premium Edition SSDs are within a hair’s width of the SATA III bandwidth saturation point.

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lexar 128gb 3600x cfastLexar, a leading global brand of flash memory products, today announced two additions to its CFast memory card line: the Lexar Professional 3600x CFast 2.0 card and the Lexar Professional 3500x CFast 2.0 card. Both are designed to capture high-quality 4K video and meet the exacting speed and capacity demands of professional cinematographers, filmmakers, and content creators. These cards leverage new thresholds of performance and maximize the capabilities of next-generation cinema-grade video cameras.

“More and more cinematographers and videographers are embracing cutting-edge video cameras for important shoots,” said Steffi Ho, product marketing manager, Lexar. “The goal in developing the Professional 3600x and 3500x CFast 2.0 cards is to provide them with the fastest memory cards available to capture high quality 4K video and beyond.”

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OCZ Storage Solutions -- a Toshiba Group Company and provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, today announced the introduction of Host Managed SSD (HMS) technology, first supported by the Saber 1000 Series SSDs. HMS technology enables Host controls over internal SSD background processing tasks that were previously not exposed to host-level software. System-level software control of background processing tasks, such as Garbage Collection, enable improving overall storage performance, and specifically enable obtaining consistent and predictable latency across a large pool of SSDs.

ocz saber hms ssd

Hyperscale, Cloud, and datacenters now run software defined storage applications which manage large pools of SSDs across multiple servers. Consistent performance of these SSDs is critical to many modern applications, such as modern data bases and online trading, that have migrated to the Cloud. Exposing HMS functions via API enables integration of HMS functions into the storage stacks.

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lexar 128gb 2933x xqdLexar, a leading global brand of flash memory products, today introduced the Lexar Professional 2933x and 1400x XQD 2.0 cards, as well as the Lexar Professional Workflow XR2 (XQD 2.0 USB 3.0 reader) for professional videographers, photographers, and enthusiasts. The Professional 2933x XQD 2.0 is the fastest XQD card on the market today, delivering a dramatically enhanced workflow with the quickest capture and transfer performance available.

Designed for use with the latest generation of high-definition camcorders and high-resolution DSLRs, the new XQD 2.0 cards deliver read transfer speeds up to 2933x (440MB per second) and 1400x (210MB per second) respectively, enabling an accelerated workflow that allows users to quickly capture and store stunning, high-quality images and 4K video. These new rugged, high-speed cards support both PCI Express Gen 2 and USB 3.0 interfaces.

“The Lexar Professional 2933x and 1400x XQD 2.0 cards provide exceptional resilience to environmental factors such as water, vibration, shock, and temperature, so they’re the ideal tool for professional photographers and videographers using XQD based DSLRs, such as the Nikon 4DS, looking to capture the highest quality images or video in any environment,” said Wes Brewer, vice president and general manager, Lexar. “And pairing these new cards with the Professional Workflow XR2 reader gives photographers and videographers the ability to quickly offload content and complete post-production work, so they can save time and refocus on their business and craft.”

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