Western Digital's (WD's) wholly owned subsidiary HGST ...
Ron: << I think they got that wrong HGST is Hitachi. >>
"They" (i.e. Backblaze) did not get that wrong. HGST is not Hitachi and HGST is not a Hitachi brandmark. HGST is a wholly owned and independently operated subsidiary of Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ: WDC). HGST is also a trademarked Western Digital brand name and logo and Backblaze correctly showed it in the bar chart you are referring to for the WD HGST drives they purchased subsequent to 2012. They also showed the Hitachi logo correctly for the 3.5" SATA drives they purchased from Hitachi prior to 2012.
Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) was a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd that Western Digital agreed to buy in March 2011 before the October Thailand floods. The acquisition of Hitachi GST and virtually all its assets by Western Digital from Viviti Technologies Ltd, a holding company subsidiary of Hitachi, after all requisite regulatory approvals were obtained was completed in March 2012. The assets included the owned and leased 2.9 million square foot San Jose, CA HGST headquarters for administration, product development, R&D, marketing and sales, as well as the manufacturing complex where head wafers, heads, and media for HGST HDDs are produced. Assets excluded those transferred to Toshiba from WD that enabled Toshiba to produce 3.5" drives.
When I read the Backblaze text and tables that backed up the graphic you are referring to I initially thought that the HGST and Hitachi drives had been lumped together and I so commented incorrectly. After a more careful read I realized that all of the 'HGST' drives marked with an asterisk were pre-2012 manufactured Hitachi Deskstar drives. The newer larger capacity WD HGST drives did not have the asterisk. The bulleted Backblaze note in the text explained the HGST (*) asterisk:
• The HGST (*) model name – we’ve been asked to use HGST in place of Hitachi and we are honoring that request, but these drives report their model as Hitachi and are listed as such in the data files
In a 2 week old post to you I recently realized that I had made a misstatement of fact in regard to Touro portables and I will correct that later today in a post that will follow.
If You see any misstatement of fact you feel I have made in this post please comment it. TIA for that.
Cheers, - Eric - |
