The acquisition is the latest in a series of mergers of storage companies. Last March, . In December of last year, .

The Seagate/LaCie merger is on a smaller scale than those other two, but it’s still an interesting turn of events: Seagate mechanisms frequently show up in LaCie-branded drives. Seagate does have an external hard drive business, but its product designs are more industrial (or perhaps “traditional”) than LaCie's. The latter employs designers including , , and to create consumer products that are, according to LaCie’s , “beautiful and performance-driven.”

LaCie chairman and CEO Philippe Spruch will join Seagate as the leader of the company’s consumer storage products division. The press release also says that Seagate will be “adding LaCie’s line of premium branded consumer storage solutions” to Seagate’s current lineup—which would indicate that LaCie’s products won’t be going away, at least in the near future. It remains to be seen whether LaCie’s products will be rebranded with the Seagate name or the LaCie brand will continue.