HGST Founds The Storage Products Association (SPA) With Other HDD Makers, To Promote The Storage And Hard Drive Industry

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Aug. 13, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Flash Memory Summit 2013 (Booth #606) -- HGST (formerly Hitachi Global Storage Technologies and now a Western Digital company, NASDAQ: WDC) today announced that it is a founding member of the Storage Products Association (SPA), with Seagate, Toshiba and WD. The SPA will serve as a new voice for the storage industry to help promote the important and growing role of hard disk drives (HDDs). The formation of the SPA to promote new innovations driven by hard disk drives – a sixty year old technology – points to the new and critical role HDDs play in enabling today's and tomorrow's data-intensive mobile and cloud world.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120913/LA73138LOGO)

According to IDC, our digital universe will grow by a factor of 300 from 2005 to 2020, reaching 40 trillion gigabytes¹. With this growth trajectory, the demand for high-capacity, high-performance and cost-effective storage will continue to soar, whether it's for data stored locally, in the datacenter or in the cloud.  HGST believes one of the most pressing needs is to inform customers about how hard drive technology, solid state technology and variations of these technologies can be combined to efficiently scale to support the client market, and cloud and enterprise datacenter infrastructures to deliver value in terms of the best total cost of ownership (TCO).

Providing market education, the SPA's mission is to help storage customers, partners and users understand, deploy and support current and future storage needs, including the key role of HDDs and solid state hybrid drives (SSHDs) in an effective storage mix for all consumer and business environments. The SPA will also participate in market research and events, as well as publish materials about end users' storage needs and effective storage usage using a mix of technologies.

"We have seen the demand for storage products shift dramatically over the last ten years with the emergence of cloud computing, Internet search, social networks, big data and mobile computing," said Mark Grace, senior vice president of marketing, HGST, and member of the SPA board of directors. "This period of remarkable change is driving the need for innovative and reliable high-performance and high-capacity storage with the best TCO, especially in the areas of hyperscale cloud datacenter infrastructures and cold storage environments. As storage companies, SPA members are at the forefront of this change, focused on evolving products to support changing market needs."

More information about the SPA can be found at http://www.storage-products-association.org.  You can also follow SPA on Twitter at www.twitter.com/storageproducts or @storageproducts.

About HGST
HGST (formerly known as Hitachi Global Storage Technologies or Hitachi GST), a Western Digital company (NASDAQ: WDC), develops advanced hard disk drives, enterprise-class solid state drives, innovative external storage solutions and services used to store, preserve and manage the world's most valued data. Founded by the pioneers of hard drives, HGST provides high-value storage for a broad range of market segments, including Enterprise, Mobile Computing, Consumer Electronics and Personal Storage. HGST was established in 2003 and maintains its U.S. headquarters in San Jose, California. For more information, please visit the company's website at http://www.hgst.com.

¹ IDC View - The Digital Universe in 2020: Big Data, Bigger Digital Shadows and Biggest Growth in the Far East, December 2012, sponsored by EMC. http://www.emc.com/collateral/analyst-reports/idc-the-digital-universe-in-2020.pdf

All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. HGST trademarks are intended and authorized for use only in countries and jurisdictions in which HGST has obtained the rights to use, market and advertise the brand.

This press release contains forward-looking statements, including statements relating to expected demand for HDD and other storage products.  These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements, including changes in markets, demand, uncertainties related to the development, introduction, and timing of products based on new technologies, and other risks and uncertainties listed in Western Digital's recent SEC filings to which your attention is directed.  Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak on as of the date hereof, and HGST/WD undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances.

SOURCE HGST, A Western Digital Company