Seagate has agreed to a deal to acquire Xyratex in an effort to strengthen the supply and manufacturing chain for the hard disk drives it produces, the two companies said in a joint release Monday.
Xyratex creates testing systems for hard disk drives (HDD), and Dave Mosley, president of operations and technology at Seagate, said the acquisition aims to help streamline its HDD production.
“As the average capacity per drive increases to multi-terabytes, the time to test these drives increases dramatically, ” Mosley said. “Therefore, access to world-class test equipment becomes an increasingly strategic capability.”
Under the definitive agreement between the two companies, Seagate also intends to grow Xyratex’s enterprise data storage systems and computing technologies as a separate operation.
The companies expect the all-cash transaction to close in mid-2014, subject to closing conditions.
