Frostwolf wrote:
IBM drives are made by Hitachi.
Cut the middle man out and save a few bucks
IBM's drive division (incl. associated fabs/factories, etc) was recently sold to Hitachi. Older drives wear the IBM nameplate; newer drives have the Hitachi nameplate.
No 'middlemen,' just two different owners of the properties. Some less scrupulous vendors might knock their prices up now that "IBM" branded drives will grow scarce. ('Enterprise' users looking for direct replacements don't always keep track of things like buyouts.) This would be fairly unusual with regular drives unless you're shopping in the wrong places, but a little of this has happened with the microdrives, since Hitachi hasn't quite cleaned up the distribution network in the US, and not every Pricewatch vendor has figured out how to restock them.
