Toshiba Establishes Two New HDD Development Centers

Toshiba may have lagged behind the two other powers on the HDD market, but it definitely doesn't plan on slacking off, having decided to set the basis for not just one, but two new HDD development centers.

One could say that the past several quarters saw things on the hard disk drive market change massively in terms of how many companies still sell such things.

While Logitec, Buffalo, LaCie and other outfits have been developing items of this sort, the fact remains that most of the HDD market is divided between three major players.

Those companies are Western Digital, Seagate and Toshiba, the first two having even boosted their status through acquisitions.

Western Digital bought Hitachi and, thus, secured the leading position, after which Seagate acquired Samsung's HDD division and partially closed the newly created market share gap.

This left Toshiba as the fairly distant third, and while some might have speculated that this wasn't very good for it, the way PC makers want to ensure they have more sources of HDDs practically ensures that it isn't going to disappear from this field any time soon.

In fact, Toshiba is particularly determined to keep going strong as far as HDD development and delivery goes.

It has been revealed that the company decided to create two new HDD development centers, one meant to research ways to enhance data density and another to develop better manufacturing solutions.

The former will be made in collaboration with Showa Denko and will look into energy-assisted and bit pattern technologies, among other things.

As for the other one, it will be part of a collaboration with TDK and will help find better way to make HDDs stronger and more varied.

Toshiba's Ome operations is where the establishments will be set up, with the official opening slated to occur on July 16.