Hard drive company Seagate Technology has completed the acquisition of Samsung’s hard drive business for $1.4 billion. The acquisition was first announced this past April. The merger was both for talent and products. Now Seagate owns Samsung’s high-capacity M8 hard drives and semiconducts for making SSDs. Some of Samsung’s senior managers will be joining Seagate.

Over the last three months, Thailand has been dealing with a series of floods that cost the lives of over four hundred people. About 2.3 million have been impacted. The financial impact is expected to be about $5.1 billion. Some of the companies that were directly affected by the floods include Western Digital, Toshiba, and Seagate. Thailand is the largest manufacturer of hard drives which accounts for 25% of total worldwide production and the floods are causing a shortage of supplies.

Some iMacs purchased in the last few months are qualified for a replacement, Apple announced on Friday, due to a faulty hard drive. The failing machines are 1TB Seagate hard drives, and Apple has established a free program to replace any qualifying machines. MacWorld reports that the replacement drive promise will be honored at Genius Bar appointments in Apple stores, at authorized Apple service providers, or at select other locations that can be found by contacting Apple tech support.

Seagate has announced a new 500GB wireless external hard drive that allows you to access movies and music on your iOS device through 802.11b/g/n WiFi capabilities. The hard drive has WPA security and a rechargeable battery. The GoFlex hard drive will be available in Best Buy stores this July, but it can be preordered now from Amazon.com, Best Buy, and Seagate.com. The hard drive depends on the GoFlex Media iOS application to access the files through the iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad. [PCW]

Samsung Electronics has signed a $1.375 billion deal with Seagate. The two companies are calling it a “strategic alignment.” Samsung will be combining its hard disk drive operations division with Seagate. Samsung will receive equity in Seagate and the two companies will have a cross-license patent agreement.

At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Seagate introduced the thinnest hard drive ever — it’s only 9mm thick. The 2.5-inch GoFlex external hard drive is 38% slimmer than their current slimmest hard drive. The new slim GoFlex will be available this spring and has a capacity of 320GB. It runs on USB 3.0 too. The GoFlex portable external drives for Mac computers cost $249 for 1.5 terabytes, $199 for 1 terabyte, $179 for 750GB, and $149 for 500GB. [VentureBeat]

Seagate has announced three new BlackArmor hard drives.  The new hard drives include the BlackArmor NAS 220 Storage Server, the BlackArmor PS 110 Portable Device, and the BlackArmor WS110 External Drive Workstation.  The NAS 220 is remotely accessible with up to 4TB and about 20 computers can be connected to it.  The 2TB costs $500 and the 4TB costs $700 each.

The WS 110 External Drive Workstation has an eSATA and USB 2.0 connection.  The 1TB costs $160 and the 2TB costs $310.  The PS 110 is 12.5mm thick and the 500GB hard drive is available for $160.

[via SlashGear]