By the end of 2011 is it likely that there will only be three HDD companies (Seagate Technology, Western Digital and Toshiba) and a handful of independent companies making major HDD components (such as TDK, SDK and Fuji Electric).

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The Thai floods that have cut the production of HDD makers like Seagate could cause fewer PCs to be manufactured, and that would create an oversupply for all the devices in the PC that are not manufactured in Thailand.

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The HDD companies, Seagate, Western Digital and Toshiba are participating in better management of storage device energy use, as are flash manufacturers such as SanDisk, Samsung and Toshiba and many flash based storage equipment suppliers such as Skyera, Smart Storage Systems and Virident.

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