It's a paradox: we are down to 2 1/2 disk drive companies, but seeing more innovative disk drives then we have in years. Thin drives; hybrid drives; helium filled drives. Why?
Second source. For decades OEM buyers insisted on a second source for every product. This forced vendors to offer cookie-cutter products.
But now that disk drive manufacturing has been reduced to Seagate, Western Digital and Toshiba, what is the point of having a second source? PC vendors just have to trust that they'll have enough drives - and if they don't, well, too bad.
Thank the 2011 Thai floods for that new-found realism.
Read more at: Why we'll see even more disk drive choice | ZDNet