Doesn't western digital license IBM's product? I thought I read somewhere where the current line of 7200rpm drives are basically the same with respect to IBM and Western Digital. Can anyone comment on this?
Update
Found the comment in an AnandTech article from March 2000. Don't know if it applies to this family of drives but they were 7200rpm models.
The Western Digital Expert 25.7, WD273BA, is identical to the IBM Deskstar 34 GXP. Besides a few different labels on the drives, you would have a hard time telling them apart if you mixed them up. The similarities don?t end at external looks either, as both drives performed so close in the benchmarks that they had virtually identical results. This really comes as no surprise, being that WD has been licensing IBM?s drive technology for the past few years. Just judging between the similarity in appearance, physical specifications, and performance, we would say WD basically is using the IBM design and just adding their logo.