And Then There Were Three

Hard drive manufacturers are becoming more of an endangered species every day.

Of the 200+ different makers of electro-mechanical hard drives that emerged over the past 57 years – from Advanced Storage Technologies to Zentek Storage – only three remain viable in the same industry today.

The big three are Western Digital, Seagate and Toshiba.

Some other big-name hard drive makers that have gotten out of the business or have been taken over by competitors include: Quantum, Maxtor, IBM, Hitachi, Hewlett-Packard, Samsung, Sony, and Fujitsu.

Some of the less familiar – and long-gone – hard drive manufacturers include: Olivetti, Okidata, Magnetic Peripherals and Epson.

For a full list of defunct hard drive companies compiled by Storage Newsletter, click here.

Declining margins, decreasing demand, economies of scale and quickly-moving advancements in new technology are all partly to blame for the narrowing field of hard drive makers in the global marketplace.
The situation seems very much like the shrinking field of computer makers, which has also contracted quite a bit over the last few decades.

Growing, Not Shrinking

In contrast, look at the emerging solid state drive (SSD) market, where new manufacturers are a dime a dozen. Click here for an update on the state of SSDs.
For a full list of the current 111 SSD companies, click here.

Remember: Every data storage device fails eventually and we have seen just about every make and model of failed hard drive come through our lab over the last 28 years.

No matter what type of device it is – old or new, big or small – you may need DriveSavers help with data recovery unless there is a complete verified backup of the content stored somewhere else.