Western Digital buys Virident Systems for $685 million, bolsters enterprise efforts

Western Digital said it will acquire Virident Systems for $685 million to bolster its enterprise storage line-up.

The all-cash acquisition, conducted by Western Digital subsidiary HGST, gives the company server-side Flash memory systems. Western Digital acquired HGST in 2011. 

Storage vendors that have typically played in the consumer space such as Sandisk are increasingly eyeing the enterprise, which is adopting solid-state storage for data centers, because the profit margins are better.

Virident's flagship product is its FlashMAX PCIe enterprise storage. These storage systems are used for virtualization, cloud and Web applications.

With the move, Western Digital also gets Virident's software, which will be integrated throughout HGST's portfolio. Virident CEO Mike Gustafson will join HGST as senior vice president.