Maybe some of the drive technology coming out of this new facility will find it's way into a highly reliable FR server farm someday.
Solyndra's old headquarters in Fremont on Kato Road next to Interstate 880.
Posted on 03/02/2013 8:58:39 AM PST by ProtectOurFreedom
Seagate Technology on Friday unveiled a $180 million cutting-edge research and development complex at the former Solyndra solar factory in Fremont, a site the company will use to invent next-generation disk drives. Up to 600 people could work at the facility, depending on product demand, Seagate executives said.
"It's a big deal to be keeping high-tech research and development jobs in Silicon Valley," said Mark Re, a Seagate senior vice president and R&D executive. "This is going to be a state-of-the-art facility."
Late Thursday, Seagate installed a huge sign with its name and logo on the side of the 411,000-square-foot complex
Earlier this year, the company paid $90 million for the onetime solar manufacturing center, which became available after the sudden collapse and bankruptcy of Solyndra, a onetime high-flyer in the solar industry.
Seagate intends to spend another $90 million to $100 million over the next couple of years to install R&D equipment.
"We will be researching next-generation technologies at this plant," Re said. "We operate in a nanotechnology environment and we need state-of-the-art infrastructure."
Seagate is one of only three disk drive makers worldwide, along with Western Digital and Toshiba, and its efforts to invent the disk drives of the future are driven by global demand for larger and larger chunks of data storage.
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
Maybe some of the drive technology coming out of this new facility will find it's way into a highly reliable FR server farm someday.
Solyndra's old headquarters in Fremont on Kato Road next to Interstate 880.
Too bad they chose to settle in a business unfriendly state. They must have considered the equipment ready clean room space a bargain.
At least a real business is moving in there and setting up shop.
I wonder how much this “NEW CUTTING EDGE TECHNOLOGY” company will cost us.
Not even 0.01% of what Solyndra cost us. Silicon Valley companies generally frown on government R&D contract research. These are truly private sector companies.
UGH! That's what I was thinking. I hope they aren't reaching their fingers into our pockets for this. If they are, I hope they die a miserable death. Enough of this crony capitalism crap. We've been robbed enough.
If this business is totally private, I say kudos to them, and I hope they're a huge success. If so, they could become a role model for other, new American companies to follow.
They damn well better be researching non-moving storage of any mechanical capacity. If they don’t they are dead meat.
Never thought that disk drives would be this big and more importantly, cheap. Disk drives are very reliable, too.
Drove by there two weeks ago and saw the for sale sign gone.
Was wondering if the building was sold, now I know.
Gotta wonder what kind of a tax deal they got. Had to be some sweetheart deal under the table.
You can marvel at the height of efficiency, storage and value of moving storage all you want to. It will not be part of the future. Sorry.
Haven't rebuilt or upgraded a computer in some time. Is Maxtor gone?
I worked in the storage industry a few years ago. Back when a full rack cabinet held 8GB. Lol.
Just my observation and maybe in line with your point — who needs 2TB? The average consumer can get by with at max 500GB. So maybe SSDs will become more compelling for consumers. They certainly consume less power and are ideally suited for mobile computing.
Those who need large capacity are those who want to keep and stockpile large amounts of information, i.e., the federal government.
Seagate bought Maxtor a few years back.
Real estate is at a premium in the San Francisco Bay Area, with Intel, Apple, Google and Facebook headquartered here. Seagate wants to be near the big players.
Seagate has a large building in the same complex with Apple right now, but is loosing market to non-spinning memory suppliers.
I have 2 of SG’s 1TB drives and mirror them. They sure take a long time to wake up. Otherwise decent though.
But the battery life in a laptop with a SSD is astronomically longer than one with a HD.
SSDs are also slower than discs by at least an order of magnitude. They’ll catch up eventually because there are limits over how fast a disc can spin before it disintegrates but that’s probably several years away.
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