Seagate: “We Are not Refusing to Sell High Capacity 2.5-Inch HDDs”

We have received the following email from Brian Ziel, senior director of corporate communications at Seagate Technology, following our article published la Friday (Seagate Refuses to Sell High Capacity 2.5-Inch HDDs): "[Here] is a clarification to the story you released about Seagate refusing to sell high-cap 2.5-inch HDDs. It seems that the information you received may not have been complete. Our highest capacity 2.5-inch drives are being manufactured by Seagate primarily targeted for use in our own external portable products at this time. Seagate external portable products are absorbing nearly all of our factory output. There are, however, a sampling of customers who are evaluating the drives for use in their own external portable products. So while these drives are not widely available in the market for every 2.5-inch application and while you may have been told differently, I believe it is inaccurate to say we are ‘refusing’ to sell them. We continue to offer the widest range of hard drives to all segments of the market and we will continue to do so."

There is some confusion in the communication at Seagate concerning these high-capacity 2.5-inch HDDs. One one side, a Seagate’s rep told us that that they will not be sold at all, even to companies offering portable external units, and, on the other side, here, that sampling of customers is evaluating the drives for use in their own external portable products.

Today, the production is for Seagate only, and we didn’t find any company in external HDDs integrating the Seagate’s 1TB notebook HDD or any other one offering it as an internal device. For how long? Wait and see. WD don’t refuse to sell its comparable devices, but, according to Jim Welsh, senior VP and GM, branded products:" However filling the strong WD branded products demand first is a priority."