HGST

HGST, Inc.

Industry| Computer storage devices
Fate| Acquired by Western Digital in 2012; brand phased out in 2018
Predecessor| IBM's hard drive business
Founded| 2003; 23 years ago (2003)
Defunct| 2018; 8 years ago (2018)
Headquarters|

San Jose

United States

Area served

| Worldwide

Key people

| Mike Cordano (President)
Products| Hard disk drives
solid-state drives
external storage devices

Number of employees

| 45,000
Website| http://www.hgst.com/
HGST's Fujisawa plant, expanded from IBM's Fujisawa plant

HGST, Inc. (Hitachi Global Storage Technologies) was a manufacturer of hard disk drives, solid-state drives, and external storage products and services.

It was initially a subsidiary of Hitachi, formed through its acquisition of IBM's disk drive business. It was acquired by Western Digital in 2012. However, until October 2015, it was required to operate autonomously from the remainder of the company due to conditions imposed by Chinese regulators. Chinese regulators later permitted Western Digital to begin wider integration of HGST into its main business. By 2018, the HGST brand had been phased out, with its remaining products now marketed under the Western Digital name.

## Contents

* 1 History
* 2 Products
* 2.1 Hard drives and solid-state drives
* 2.2 External storage
* 3 See also
* 4 References

## History

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies was founded on January 6, 2003, as a merger of the hard disk drive businesses of IBM and Hitachi.[1] Hitachi paid IBM US$2.05 billion for its HDD business.[2][3]

On March 8, 2012, Western Digital (WD) acquired Hitachi Global Storage Technologies for $3.9 billion in cash and 25 million shares of WD common stock valued at approximately $900 million. The deal resulted in Hitachi, Ltd. owning approximately 10 percent of WD shares outstanding, and reserving the right to designate two individuals to the board of directors of WD. Citing antitrust concerns, China's Ministry of Commerce required HGST to operate autonomously from Western Digital, restricting outright integration between the companies' operations. As a result, HGST continued to operate independently with its own product lines and product development.[4][5]

As part of the deal, Western Digital agreed to trade assets with Toshiba, with Toshiba receiving assets for the production of 3.5-inch hard drives (1, 2 and 3-platter drives produced in Shenzhen, China), in exchange for a Toshiba factory in Thailand for producing 2.5-inch drives (which had been inactive since the 2011 floods).[6]

In November 2013, HGST announced a 6 TB capacity drive filled with helium.[7] In September 2014, the company announced a 10 TB helium drive, which uses shingled magnetic recording to improve density.[8]

In October 2015, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce issued a decision allowing Western Digital to begin integrating HGST into its main business. WD was required to maintain the HGST brand and sale team for at least two more years.[9] Since then, first WD-branded products left HGST's plant at 304 Industrial Park in Prachinburi Province, Thailand; in reverse, certain HGST-branded products became produced at Western Digital's plants in Bang Pa-in District, Ayutthaya Province, Thailand and Penang, Malaysia. In 2018, Western Digital announced that it was phasing out its HGST brand and that all of its remaining product lines (particularly Ultrastar) will henceforth be marketed as brands of Western Digital.[10][11]

## Products

### Hard drives and solid-state drives

Ultrastar HUA723020ALA640

* Ultrastar – Enterprise-class line of 3.5-inch and 2.5-inch HDDs with SCSI, Fibre Channel, SAS, and SATA interfaces; and a line of 3.5-inch and 2.5-inch Fibre Channel, SAS and PCIe NVMe SSDs. Now marketed under Western Digital brand.
* Deskstar – Desktop-class line in 3.5-inch form factor with SATA interfaces. Phased out after discontinuation of HGST brand. Western Digital-branded successors are 3.5-inch variants of WD Blue and Black HDDs, and for Deskstar NAS drives also WD Red.
* Travelstar – Mobile-class line in 2.5-inch form factor with SATA interfaces. Phased out after discontinuation of HGST brand. Western Digital-branded successors are 2.5-inch variants of WD Blue and Black HDDs.
* Endurastar – Ruggedized line in 2.5-inch form factor with PATA or SATA interfaces, primarily for automotive applications. Phased out after discontinuation of HGST brand.
* CinemaStar – 3.5-inch and 2.5-inch form factors, optimized for consumer electronics applications requiring quiet operation and AV streaming commands support. Phased out after discontinuation of HGST brand. Western Digital-branded successors are WD Purple and AV.

### External storage

* LifeStudio products, announced in 2010 but now discontinued, were external hard drives that combine photo organization software, a 3D Wall for displaying content, a connected USB Flash key.[12]
* G-Technology external storage products, acquired in 2009,[13] are sold to Apple Macintosh communities, including users of multimedia content such as Final Cut Pro digital audio/video production professionals. Now rebranded as SanDisk Professional.[14][15][16]
* Touro family of cloud storage backup products.

## See also

* Hitachi-LG Data Storage (HLDS) – joint venture of Hitachi and LG; manufacturer of DVD and Blu-ray drives.
* Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) – manufacturer of modular enterprise storage systems, software and services.

## References

1. ↑ "Hitachi Establishes "Hitachi Global Storage Technologies," Taking A Bold New Step for Storage Innovation" (Press release). Hitachi. January 6, 2003.
2. ↑ Hitachi buys IBM disk drive business, June 6, 2002
3. ↑ "Hitachi and IBM Complete Hard Disk Drive Agreement" (Press release). IBM. December 31, 2002. Archived from the original on January 31, 2008.
4. ↑ Sayer, Peter (2018-11-30). "Inside Western Digital's massive cloud ERP migration" (in en). https://www.cio.com/article/3322902/enterprise-resource-planning/inside-western-digitals-massive-cloud-erp-migration.html.
5. ↑ Byford, Sam (March 9, 2012). "Western Digital completes $4.8b Hitachi GST buyout, becomes world's largest HDD manufacturer". The Verge. https://www.theverge.com/2012/3/9/2856601/western-digital-4-8b-hitachi-gst-buyout.
6. ↑ Hollister, Sean (2012-02-28). "Western Digital and Toshiba trade hard drive tech, clearing the way for WD / Hitachi merger". https://www.theverge.com/2012/2/28/2832060/western-digital-and-toshiba-trade-hard-drive-manufacturing-equipment.
7. ↑ Mellor, Chris (November 4, 2013). "Helium-Filled disks lift off: You can't keep these 6TB beasts down". The Register. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/04/helium_drives_from_hgst/.
8. ↑ Gasior, Geoff (September 9, 2013). "Shingled platters breathe helium inside HGST's 10TB hard drive". The Tech Report. http://techreport.com/news/27031/shingled-platters-breathe-helium-inside-hgst-10tb-hard-drive.
9. ↑ "China finally says yes to WD-HGST union" (in en). https://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/19/mofcom_says_yes_wd_hgst_merger/.
10. ↑ Hagedoorn, Hilbert (19 March 2018). "Western Digital moves away from the HGST branding" (in en-us). https://www.guru3d.com/news-story/western-digital-moves-away-from-the-hgst-branding.html.
11. ↑ Sharp, Lenny (2018-03-15). "Western Digital Unveils New Addition: 8TB Ultrastar® DC HC320" (in en-US). https://blog.westerndigital.com/western-digital-sets-new-high-lower-capacity-options/.
12. ↑ Dong Ngo (July 7, 2010). "Hitachi unveils LifeStudio storage solutions". CNet news blog. http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20008777-1.html.
13. ↑ "Hitachi GST Completes Acquisition of Fabrik, Inc. — Company Sets Stage for Continued Global Expansion". News release. April 6, 2009. http://www.g-technology.com/news/pdf/Fabrik-Close-Release.pdf.
14. ↑ "Introducing SanDisk Professional | Western Digital" (in en). http://westerndigital.com/promotions/sandisk-professional/product-launch.
15. ↑ Wyndham, Simon. "G-Technology has been rebranded as SanDisk Professional" (in en). https://www.redsharknews.com/g-technology-has-been-rebranded-as-sandisk-professional.
16. ↑ Schneider, Jaron (7 October 2021). "SanDisk Professional G-Drives: New Name, Better Performance" (in en). https://petapixel.com/2021/10/07/sandisk-professional-g-drives-new-name-better-performance/.

* v
* t
* e

Hitachi

Divisions and
subsidiaries|

| Current|

* Hitachi Cable
* Hitachi Cable Manchester
* Hitachi Canadian Industries
* Hitachi Capital
* Hitachi Construction Machinery
* Hitachi Construction Machinery (Europe)
* Hitachi Consulting
* Hitachi Data Systems (BlueArc)
* Hitachi Electronics
* Maxell
* Hitachi Medical Systems
* Hitachi Rail
* Hitachi Rail STS
* Hitachi Rail Italy
* Horizon Nuclear Power
* JECS

|

Former|

* Clarion
* Euclid Trucks1
* Fabrik1
* Hitachi Global Storage Technologies2

Joint ventures and
shareholdings|

| Current|

* GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (40%)
* Hitachi-LG Data Storage
* Tata Hitachi Construction Machinery (60%)

|

Former|

* Agility Trains
* Alaxala Networks
* Japan Display
* Casio Hitachi Mobile Communications
* Nippon Columbia
* Renesas Electronics

Products, services
and standards|

| Current|

* ALiS
* EMIEW
* Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage 2000
* Hitachi DX07
* Hitachi Starboard
* Locomotives
* Hitachi Magic Wand
* Multiple units
* Hitachi 917
* Hitachi SR8000
* Hitachi Travelstar
* Hitachi TrueCopy
* LS-R
* M8
* Stacked Volumetric Optical Disk
* SuperH
* Universal Storage Platform

|

Defunct|

* D-VHS
* H8 Family
* HD64180
* HITAC
* HITAC S-810
* Hitachi 6309
* Hitachi Deskstar
* Hitachi Flora Prius
* Hitachi G1000
* Hitachi Hatsukaze
* Hitachi SR2201
* Hitachi T.2
* Hitachi TR.1
* M6
* Microdrive

People|

* Namihei Odaira
* Kenichi Ohmae
* Hiroaki Nakanishi
* Takashi Kawamura

Places|

* Hitachi Kashiwa Soccer Stadium
* Hitachi, Ibaraki
* Hitachi Tower
* Tsūtenkaku

Other|

* DKB Group
* HDMI Licensing
* Hitachi 3Tours Championship
* Hitachi Data Systems History
* The Hitachi Foundation
* Hindu Hitachi Scholarships
* Hitachi SunRockers
* Hitachi Rivale
* Kashiwa Reysol

* 1Now integrated into other Hitachi divisions or business groupings 2Sold to Western Digital

* Category
* Commons

* v
* t
* e

Western Digital

Brands|

* WD
* SanDisk
* G-Technology
* Upthere

Products|

| WD|

* FD1771
* Media Center
* My Book
* My Passport
* Raptor
* WD TV

|

SanDisk|

* Sansa
* c200
* e200
* Fuze
* Fuze+
* StartKey

Acquisitions|

* Amplidata
* Arkeia Software
* HGST
* SanDisk
* STec, Inc.
* Tegile Systems
* Virident Systems

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