Western Digital Corp, the hard drive manufacturer, announced its pending purchase of Virident Systems Inc, a flash memory manufacturer for servers. The cost of the purchase would be USD685 million in cash.

The company, with the purchase, is expanding its presence in the solid state or flash storage industry with its recent activities. Last June, the hard drive manufacturer purchased floundering soild state drive manufacturer Stec Inc in order to be one of the major players in this high growth markets.

According to Western Digital CEO Steve Milligan, "We have established a competitive position in the enterprise SSD space and with our recently announced acquisitions we are increasing our commitment to become an even more significant player in this high growth segment."

The financial adviser to Western Digital in this transaction was RBC Capital Markets while BofA Merill Lynch had advised Virident on the transaction. The purchase is expected to be completed by the end of 2013.