Hard drive makers living high on the hog will find themselves in a bit of rut in the second half of 2010, which sources say is the result of Europe's ongoing bond crisis. Both third and fourth quarter HDD shipments are now expected to be 5-10 percent lower than originally forecast.

This is the same time period that's traditionally been considered the peak season for the IT industry, but hard drive makers are already starting to feel the pinch. Citing a research firm's figures, shipments once expected to reach 165 million units in the second quarter have now been reduced to 152-155 million.

If there's a silver lining, it's that 2010 has been particularly strong overall. Even though none of the HDD players are likely to reach their original shipment goals for the second half of 2010, shipments for the entire year should still end up seeing growth compared to 2009.

For the first time ever, hard disk drive (HDD) shipments from Western Digital have zipped past Seagate, according to a report by market research firm iSuppli.

Western Digital managed to ship 51.1 million HDDs for the first quarter of 2010, a 3.2 percent increase from the 49.5 million units it shipped in the fourth quarter of 2009. That was enough to finally edge out Seagate, which shipped 50.3 million, up 0.8 percent from 49.9 million over the prior quarter.

While Western Digital wins the quarterly shipment war, Seagate still has the edge in revenue. According to iSuppli, Seagate's revenue numbers sit at $3.1 billion, a good chunk higher than Western Digital's $2.64 billion.

In what research firm Gartner is calling a "robust recovery" in certain parts of the world, PC shipments around the globe ballooned to 84.3 million units in the first quarter of 2010. That's a 27.4 percent increase from the same quarter in 2009, and higher than the 22 percent growth Gartner had predicted.

"The stronger-than-expected growth was led by a robust recovery in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) PC market, which grew 24.8% in the first quarter of 2010," said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner. "All other regions recorded double-digit growth rates, although the US and Latin America were slightly lower than what we had expected.

"These first-quarter results indicate that the professional PC market is gradually picking up, driven by PC replacements in mature markets," Kitagawa said. "With a relatively positive macroeconomic outlook, business demand was more forthcoming. Major PC replacement demand driven by Windows 7 will become more apparent in the second half of 2010 and the beginning of 2011."

PC shipments in the US totaled 17.4 million units in the first quarter, representing a 20.2 percent growth rate from one year ago. That's the second consecutive quarter of double-digit shipment growth. Toshiba was a big benefactor in all this, which saw shipments jump by 50 percent as the result of competitive pricing and promotions.

Acer has a long road ahead of it if the company wants to be king of the notebook hill by next year (and Acer does). As if that weren't ambitious enough, the climb to No. 1 will get a little bit steeper if Acer's notebook shipments remain flat this quarter, as the company expects they will.

According to Acer CEO Gianfranco Lanci, notebooks shipments will likely stall sequentially in Q1 2010, yet still be up 40-45 percent over the same quarter one year ago.

The company's notebook shipments might have actually fallen, if not for strong orders from Europe, the Asia Pacific, and North Pacific. And going forward, Lanci expects shipments to pick back up and grow 25-30 percent on year.

There's also been some talk of component shortages, and while Lanci admitted to a few GPU shortage issues, he expects this to become a non-issue by the end of the month.