Western Digital

[Tywais]

Western Digital restarts hard disk production

Hard disk giant Western Digital said today that it has partially restored production at a facility that had been shut down because of the flooding in Thailand.

The world's largest HDD manufacturer in terms of volume, Western Digital was one of the hardest hit by the flooding. The company has 37,000 workers in Thailand, and production in the country accounts for 60 percent of the company's total capacity, according to IHS-iSuppli.

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WD restarted production of hard drives this week in one of its buildings in Bang Pa-in, Thailand, one week ahead of internal schedules, the company said.

"This facility had been submerged in some six feet of water since October 15, the estate was pumped dry on November 17, main power was restored on November 26 and production restarted November 30," according to a statement.

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[keeniau96]

Just how much production is coming out of those WD plants? The pictures seen on the Internet showed severe flooding of sensitive equipment, which would appear to require considerable refurbishing and testing. Not to challenge WD veracity, but I think there is much reason to wonder about the spin of this article. Certainly something is being produced, but how many actual hard drives are being produced and what level of previous production is the current output?

[RedNIvar]

Just how much production is coming out of those WD plants? The pictures seen on the Internet showed severe flooding of sensitive equipment, which would appear to require considerable refurbishing and testing. Not to challenge WD veracity, but I think there is much reason to wonder about the spin of this article. Certainly something is being produced, but how many actual hard drives are being produced and what level of previous production is the current output?

You are commenting on the 1 story building that was inundated. There are 3 other buildings that are 3 stories or more with manufacturing lines on the top floors. These lines were unaffected by the flood waters. These lines could restart once there is power and workers and supporting functions (clean canteen, raw materials, etc).