Guys - this is an important topic for many wanting one or more back-up external HDs - I own over a half dozen HDs backing up an iMac and 2 laptops - several are from OWC (recommended by
Randy) - these are HGST products, i.e. Hitachi which is now owned by Western Digital (see quote -
SOURCE); my others are WD, Seagate, & one LaCie SSD.
There now seems to be only 3-4 'major' companies that make HDs w/ many others now acquired by the top three in the pic below - just wondering if their products are all the same or if there are better quality sub-divisions?
Randy mentioned
Glyphtech - took a look and the drives look quite good but not sure if they are made by that company or sourced from the top ones already mentioned, as in the OWC products? Dave
Well, first, your "source" for WD owning Hitachi is out of date and misleading. WD did purchase Hitachi's hard drive division:
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/storage/wd-buys-hitachi-gst-the-good-and-the-bad/1309
But... one or more governments were concerned that Western Digital would have too close to a monopoly, so they forced WD to divest some of Hitachi. Western Digital retained Hitachi’s 2.5” rotating disk (that is, laptop drives) and SSD businesses, but Hitachi’s 3.5” rotating disk (that is, desktop hard drive mechanisms) business was sold to Toshiba:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5635/...e-business-to-toshiba-complete-hitachi-buyout
WD also retained the Hitachi name. So, bear in mind that if you go today to a store to purchase an "HGST" internal hard drive mechanism from WD, it has no relation to the previously superb internal desktop hard drive mechanisms that we knew and loved for years, because that business was sold to Toshiba.
So, is Toshiba selling the excellent internal desktop hard drives that used to be made by Hitachi? It doesn't seem so. Toshiba's desktop hard drive mechanisms appear to all be made for them by third parties in China. They may still be good, but they aren't the same drives made in the same factory as before the company was broken up and sold.
You are correct, though, there are now only three companies from which you can purchase internal desktop (3.5-inch) rotating disk hard drive mechanisms: Seagate, Western Digital, and Toshiba. And, yes, each of those companies have several different models with various performance and quality standards at each storage capacity point. For instance, in the 1TB range WD has several models named after colors:
Blue: standard desktop drives - 2 year warranty
Green: Mass storage drives -- slower but more energy efficient, cheaper per GB. - 3 year warranty
Black: Faster, more cache, great compromise if you can't afford an SSD. - 5 year warranty
Red: Like Green, but more reliable and designed for small enclosures and RAID setups and which are optimized for quick access in a RAID. - 3 year warranty
Second, you are conflating internal hard drive mechanisms with external hard drives. I'll talk about this in my next post.
