Two major storage companies could soon combine forces: Western Digital has announced plans to buy SanDisk in a deal valued at $19 billion.
Western Digital is probably best known for producing hard drives, while SanDisk is a major player in the flash storage space. Western Digital says the acquisition will help the company expand its product lineup and global research.
In addition to hard drives, SSDs, flash drives, and memory cards, the combined company will have solutions for cloud datacenter storage, network-attached storage devices, and other consumer and enterprise products.
SanDisk also has a strategic partnership with Toshiba to develop and product storage products, and Western Digital says that partnership will continue as the companies work together to provide NAND flash storage and new products such as 3D NAND.
The acquisition is expected to be completed by the third quarter of 2016.