Jason Dunn
04-24-2008, 11:48 PM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?locale=en-US&name=null&vgnextoid=43afb55a61379110VgnVCM100000f5ee0a0aRCRD' target='_blank'>http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.j...000f5ee0a0aRCRD</a><br /><br /></div><em>"Seagate Technology (NYSE: STX) announced today that it is the first hard drive manufacturer worldwide to have shipped 1 billion hard drives -- a number not only staggering in size but also emblematic of the massive amount of digital content being created in the home, hand, office, car and dozens of other markets. Consider this: the 1 billion hard drives Seagate has delivered equates to approximately 79 million terabytes, able to store 158 billion hours of digital video or 1.2 trillion hours of your favorite music -- and Seagate hard drives and storage solutions enable people to create, share, enjoy and protect more digital content every day. As further testimony to its market leadership and the central role storage solutions play in the digital world today, Seagate projects that although it took 29 years to reach the 1 billion milestone, the company will ship its next billion in less than five years. Also, by the time its nearest competitor reaches 1 billion drives shipped, Seagate will already be close to shipping its second billion."</em><br /><br /><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/500/dht/auto/1209077104.usr1.jpg" alt="" /><br /><br />1 billion of anything is a big number, so Seagate reaching the 1,000,000,000 mark for selling spinning magnetic platters is an impressive feat (and they expect to reach the next billion within five years). I loved this description of their very first product:<br /><em><br />"In 1979, Seagate's first product, the ST506 hard drive, could store 5 megabytes of data or the equivalent of one MP3 song. The drive weighed about five pounds and cost $1,500, or $300 per megabyte. Today, a typical Seagate hard drive offers a terabyte of data (or 1 million megabytes), which has enough capacity to record 32 days of high-definition video around the clock -- at a cost of 1/5000th of a cent ($0.00022) per megabyte."</em><br /><br />My, my - times sure have changed!