** Western Digital's WDC.O shares up 3.5% at $59.44 on Tues after Morgan Stanley reiterates 'overweight' rating following investor meetings with data storage provider

** Brokerage boosts PT by $8 to $78, implying 36% upside to stock's last close

** Morgan Stanley analyst Erik Woodring says he's more bullish on WDC's long-term model and narrowing of relative valuation gap vs peers

** Woodring says he has more confidence in several critical aspects of WDC's story, citing conservatism in management's long-term financial model; competitive positioning within hard disk drives, pacing and timing of de-levering and capital returns, and CEO Irving Tan as a "key change-agent"

** On NTM earnings basis, WDC shares trading at ~20% discount vs Seagate Technology STX.O on average, which Woodring believes is unwarranted

** According to LSEG data, WDC shares recently traded at about 10.6x forward earnings compared to STX at about 14x

** STX shares down 0.3% on the session

** Earlier this month, WDC neared exiting its Sandisk SNDK.O stake in secondary offering. In May, WDC unveiled $2 bln stock buyback program

** Of 26 analysts covering WDC., recommendation breakdown is 22 "strong buy" or "buy" and 4 "hold" and median PT is $60, per LSEG

** With move on Tues, stock up 32% YTD vs ~26% gain in NYSE Arca Disk Drive index .DDX and 2.5% rise in S&P 500 Tech sector .SPLRCT

(Lance Tupper is a Reuters market analyst. The views expressed are his own)

((lance.tupper@tr.com 1-646-279-6380))