History of Hard Disk Drives - Manufacturing History

Manufacturing History

See also List of defunct hard disk manufacturers

As of December 2011, virtually all of the world's HDDs were manufactured by three large companies: Seagate, Western Digital, and Toshiba. Hitachi (HGST) was acquired by Western Digital in 2012.

The market has continued to consolidate since the 1980s as dozens of manufacturers exited or were acquired. The first notable casualty in the PC era was Computer Memories Inc. or CMI; after an incident with faulty 20MB AT disks in 1985, CMI's reputation never recovered, and they exited the HDD business in 1987. Another notable failure was MiniScribe, which went bankrupt in 1990 after it was found that they had engaged in accounting fraud and inflated sales numbers for several years. Many other companies (like Kalok, Microscience, LaPine, Areal, Priam, and PrairieTek) also did not survive the shakeout, and had disappeared by 1993; Micropolis was able to hold on until 1997, and JTS, a relative latecomer, lasted only a few years and was gone by 1999, after attempting to manufacture in India. JTS originated a 3″ form factor for use in laptop computers. Quantum and Integral also invested in the 3″ form factor; but the form factor failed to catch on. Rodime was an important manufacturer during the 1980s, but stopped making disks in the early 1990s to concentrate on technology licensing; they hold a number of patents related to 3.5-inch form factor HDDs.

The following is the genealogy of the remaining participants:

• 1967: Hitachi enters the HDD business.
• 1967: Toshiba enters the HDD business.
• 1979: Seagate Technology founded.
• 1988: Western Digital, then a well-known controller designer, enters the HDD business by acquiring Tandon Corporation's disk manufacturing division.
• 1988: Samsung enters the worldwide HDD market, previously having manufactured Comport disk drives for the Korean market.
• 1989: Seagate purchases Control Data's HDD business.
• 1990: Maxtor purchases MiniScribe out of bankruptcy, making it the core of its low-end HDDs.
• 1994: Quantum purchases DEC's storage division, giving it a high-end disk range to go with its more consumer-oriented ProDrive range.
• 1996: Seagate acquires Conner Peripherals in a merger.
• 2000: Maxtor acquires Quantum's HDD business; Quantum remains in the tape business.
• 2003: Hitachi acquires the majority of IBM's disk division, renaming it Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (HGST).
• 2006: Seagate acquires Maxtor.
• 2009: Toshiba acquires Fujitsu's HDD division.
• 2011: Western Digital proposes acquiring Hitachi's HDD division.
• 2011: Seagate acquires Samsung's HDD division.
• 2012: Western Digital acquires Hitachi Global Storage Technologies.
• 2012: Seagate acquires Lacie.

In 2011, based on market research firm IDC, the biggest hard drive makers were Seagate Technology and Western Digital Corp., but the largest national producer was China, followed by Thailand which makes about a quarter of the world's hard drives. The concentration of hard disk drive producers in only a few countries made the supply vulnerable to disruptions like the 2011 Thailand floods.