How has Toshiba become a prominent player in a market dominated by Seagate and WD?

eyeangle · June 1, 2019

Only a few years ago, sometime after the purchase of HGST by WD, I called the main computer shops in my city and asked if they sold any Toshiba hard drives. Most of them replied, "Toshiba hard drive? We don't sell Toshiba hard drives, why would you want one? Seagate and WD are the main HDD brands." I ended up purchasing a Toshiba MD04ACA400 from a computer parts retailer in my city, just over 20km from where I live. Other than this shop, Toshiba HDDs were hard to come by in my city. I had owned Seagate and WD over the years and had both fail on me and wanted to try something new and to my surprise the Toshiba HDD was cheaper than the others in cost-per-gigabyte. Nowadays with Toshiba's P300 and X300 series they are competing with Seagate and WD. How do you think Toshiba has done it from barely being heard of just a few years ago and do you own a Toshiba HDD?

ARikozuM · June 1, 2019

I have six of them from a mix of years. They’re good drives, but I’ve only lost about four drives my entire life. Most drives retire before they show signs of death’s approach.

porina · June 1, 2019

I started buying Toshiba 3.5" drives some years ago for bulk storage. Compared to WD and Seagate, their cost per GB was enough better to make a difference, and also they're not afraid to do 7200rpm drives. Up to that point I mostly got WD but they're more or less at the top of the pricing tree in a given category, and I don't see value for me in that. Seagate are generally priced in between but still doesn't do it for me.