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Please rename the HGST drives. There are only Seagate, Western Digital and Toshiba - HGST is no more. Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (HGST) is now a wholl

by frik 11y ago

Please rename the HGST drives. There are only Seagate, Western Digital and Toshiba - HGST is no more. Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (HGST) is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Western Digital! To address the requirements of regulatory agencies, in May 2012 WD divested to Toshiba assets that enabled Toshiba to manufacture and sell 3.5-inch hard drives for the desktop and consumer electronics markets. So all HGST 3.5" HDDs are now Toshiba, whereas the HGST 2.5" and smaller HDDs from Western Digital. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HGST http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HGST

atYevP 11y ago
Yev from Backblaze here -> They are run as separate entities: "It was agreed that WD would operate with WD Technologies and HGST as wholly owned subsidiaries and they would compete in the marketplace with separate brands and product lines.[4][5][6]" So, they compete with each other and use different supply-chains, so they are quite different, even if the money eventually flows in to the same conglomerate.
- frik 11y ago
  From where is your quote? If you read my explanation, and the wiki article you would see it is wrong. "Some of the HGST drives listed were manufactured under their previous brand, Hitachi. We’ve been asked to use the HGST name and we have honored that request." As I mentioned even if backblaze honors a request of Western Digital, it doesn't make the claim true. I researched on this topic some months ago, after I read backblaze previous article from late 2014 and bought several Toshiba (former HGST) drives. http://www.anandtech.com/show/5635/western-digital-to-sell-hitachis-35-hard-drive-business-to-toshiba-complete-hitachi-buyout http://www.anandtech.com/show/5635/western-digital-to-sell-h... mentions it too: "Western Digital will be allowed to acquire Hitachi’s 2.5” and SSD businesses, but not the 3.5” business. Instead Western Digital will be selling that business to Toshiba – factories and all – along with granting licenses for the necessary patents, which would allow Toshiba to effectively continue in the 3.5” market from where Hitachi left off. This would firmly establish Seagate, Western Digital, and Toshiba as the 3 major players in the hard drive business across all product segments." Confirmation is the press release by WD: http://www.wdc.com/en/company/pressroom/releases/?release=f8697da0-111a-49e8-a484-5266d18526ab http://www.wdc.com/en/company/pressroom/releases/?release=f8... So former Hitachi and HGST 3.5" drives are now Toshiba drives. "The 3.5" desktop and server Hitachi drives are all manufactured by Toshiba. WD wanted to buy Hitachi's drive division so there would be a WD/Seagate drive duopoly, European regulators said they had to sell Hitachi's 3.5" to someone else before they would approve the merger. Toshiba stepped up and got it. So yes it is somewhat confusing. You buy one of these drives and it will say "HGST a Western Digital company" on the box, when in reality it's all made by Toshiba, probably in an old Hitachi factory." -- a comment, from backblaze HN post in Sept 2014: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8355860 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8355860
  - atYevP 11y ago
    I got the quote from the same wikipedia article ;-) Plus HGST has always been quite vocal about the companies being separate. We stopped calling them Hitachi drives as a result, since the new entity is called HGST.
thaumaturgy 11y ago
This comes across as a pet peeve. If the drives are branded, marketed, and sold as HGST, then they are HGST drives. Even if Yev is wrong, it's possible that WD or Toshiba are maintaining HGST drives to different specifications or QA standards. And I don't think Yev's wrong, I'm pretty sure I remember reading/hearing the same, and http://www.zdnet.com/article/western-digitals-hgst-cuts-500-singapore-jobs-shifts-production-to-thailand/ http://www.zdnet.com/article/western-digitals-hgst-cuts-500-... also suggests that WD is maintaining HGST as a separate entity. Calling HGST drives Western Digital or Toshiba would be more confusing, not less.
- frik 11y ago
  Either call them Hitachi or HGST or Toshiba. But as HGST still exists as a brand name of Western Digital and new HGST drives are either 2.5 or don't resemble the old ones mentioned in the statistics, it get's quite confusing - as the statistics is often used as a buyer guide. Adding a remark somewhere on his article would help to avoid the confusion.

by frik 11y ago

atYevP 11y ago

Yev from Backblaze here -> They are run as separate entities: "It was agreed that WD would operate with WD Technologies and HGST as wholly owned subsidiaries and they would compete in the marketplace with separate brands and product lines.[4][5][6]" So, they compete with each other and use different supply-chains, so they are quite different, even if the money eventually flows in to the same conglomerate.

frik 11y ago
From where is your quote? If you read my explanation, and the wiki article you would see it is wrong. "Some of the HGST drives listed were manufactured under their previous brand, Hitachi. We’ve been asked to use the HGST name and we have honored that request." As I mentioned even if backblaze honors a request of Western Digital, it doesn't make the claim true. I researched on this topic some months ago, after I read backblaze previous article from late 2014 and bought several Toshiba (former HGST) drives. http://www.anandtech.com/show/5635/western-digital-to-sell-hitachis-35-hard-drive-business-to-toshiba-complete-hitachi-buyout http://www.anandtech.com/show/5635/western-digital-to-sell-h... mentions it too: "Western Digital will be allowed to acquire Hitachi’s 2.5” and SSD businesses, but not the 3.5” business. Instead Western Digital will be selling that business to Toshiba – factories and all – along with granting licenses for the necessary patents, which would allow Toshiba to effectively continue in the 3.5” market from where Hitachi left off. This would firmly establish Seagate, Western Digital, and Toshiba as the 3 major players in the hard drive business across all product segments." Confirmation is the press release by WD: http://www.wdc.com/en/company/pressroom/releases/?release=f8697da0-111a-49e8-a484-5266d18526ab http://www.wdc.com/en/company/pressroom/releases/?release=f8... So former Hitachi and HGST 3.5" drives are now Toshiba drives. "The 3.5" desktop and server Hitachi drives are all manufactured by Toshiba. WD wanted to buy Hitachi's drive division so there would be a WD/Seagate drive duopoly, European regulators said they had to sell Hitachi's 3.5" to someone else before they would approve the merger. Toshiba stepped up and got it. So yes it is somewhat confusing. You buy one of these drives and it will say "HGST a Western Digital company" on the box, when in reality it's all made by Toshiba, probably in an old Hitachi factory." -- a comment, from backblaze HN post in Sept 2014: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8355860 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8355860
- atYevP 11y ago
  I got the quote from the same wikipedia article ;-) Plus HGST has always been quite vocal about the companies being separate. We stopped calling them Hitachi drives as a result, since the new entity is called HGST.

thaumaturgy 11y ago

This comes across as a pet peeve. If the drives are branded, marketed, and sold as HGST, then they are HGST drives. Even if Yev is wrong, it's possible that WD or Toshiba are maintaining HGST drives to different specifications or QA standards. And I don't think Yev's wrong, I'm pretty sure I remember reading/hearing the same, and http://www.zdnet.com/article/western-digitals-hgst-cuts-500-singapore-jobs-shifts-production-to-thailand/ http://www.zdnet.com/article/western-digitals-hgst-cuts-500-... also suggests that WD is maintaining HGST as a separate entity. Calling HGST drives Western Digital or Toshiba would be more confusing, not less.

frik 11y ago
Either call them Hitachi or HGST or Toshiba. But as HGST still exists as a brand name of Western Digital and new HGST drives are either 2.5 or don't resemble the old ones mentioned in the statistics, it get's quite confusing - as the statistics is often used as a buyer guide. Adding a remark somewhere on his article would help to avoid the confusion.