Seagate said to be sniffing round Sandisk

REPORTS HAVE IT that the Flash Memory Summit in Satan Clara is awash with rumours that hard disk maker Seagate wants to buy up some - or all - of flash storage firm Sandisk.

Certainly, Seagate must see flash drives cutting into its hard disk business over the coming months and years. The firm has also been linked with another SSD outfit, Stec Inc.

Seagate has said it will start shipping flash drives for servers in early 2009, but the fact that it is in a market seen to be receding has prompted a bunch of rumours including another one that it might buy up Intel's slice of IM Flash Technologies LLC, a joint NAND flash memory venture between Intel and Micron.

EE Times has more from the rumour mill here. µ