{
  "id": 12742423,
  "title": "Hard drives were supposed to lose the storage war — but AI demand is now pushing their biggest suppliers years ahead",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/08/hard-drives-were-supposed-to-lose-the-storage-war-but-ai-demand-is",
  "topic": "tech",
  "section": "Tech",
  "published": "2026-10-08T00:05:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "TechRadar",
    "slug": "techradar",
    "url": "https://www.techradar.com/pro/hard-drives-were-supposed-to-lose-the-storage-war-but-ai-demand-is-now-pushing-their-biggest-suppliers-years-ahead"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Hard drives, once predicted to lose their storage dominance, are instead experiencing a resurgence due to artificial intelligence's insatiable demand for data storage. The world's second-largest HDD manufacturer, Toshiba, is proactively expanding its production capacity to meet this burgeoning need. In a significant move, Toshiba has allocated $380 million to boost its HDD manufacturing in the Philippines, aiming to nearly double its AI storage drive capacity by fiscal 2027. This investment represents Toshiba's largest HDD expansion in over five years, as the company strives to adapt to the evolving storage landscape driven by AI infrastructure. The new production lines will enable Toshiba to offer drives with up to 40% more storage than their current counterparts, and Toshiba is also exploring the development of 65TB-class and potentially 100TB-class HDDs by 2030. These higher-capacity drives would allow Toshiba to meet the growing storage requirements of data centers without necessitating a proportional increase in drive production. Toshiba currently holds nearly 10% of the global HDD market by storage capacity, and the company's expansion is fueled by strong demand. Hard drives remain an attractive option for data centers due to their lower cost compared to solid-state drives (SSDs), which are about 20 times more expensive. While SSDs offer faster access, their high cost makes HDDs the preferred choice when capacity is the primary concern. AI systems generate and store vast amounts of data, necessitating storage solutions that prioritize capacity over speed. Major competitors such as Seagate and Western Digital are also witnessing robust demand for their high-capacity drives from data center customers. Seagate has reportedly allocated a significant portion of its nearline HDD capacity through 2028, with some customers projecting requirements extending into 2029 and beyond. Western Digital, too, has committed a substantial portion of its 2027 production capacity, with some capacity secured for 2028 and 2029. Toshiba's expansion efforts extend beyond its own production capabilities, as suppliers of specialized HDD components are also scaling up their manufacturing. Nitto Denko, a leading manufacturer of HDD magnetic-head suspension assemblies, plans to invest 28 billion yen ($117 million) in expanding its production capability, which is expected to grow by 40% from fiscal 2025 to fiscal 2028. Western Digital, meanwhile, has allocated approximately $1 billion for research, manufacturing technology, recruitment, and university collaborations in Japan through 2030. For Toshiba, the primary challenge is accelerating its supply to meet the rapidly growing AI-driven demand, with an ultimate goal of increasing its market share to 30%.",
  "summary": "Toshiba is expanding HDD production as AI drives demand for higher-capacity storage across data centers and cloud infrastructure.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": "Toshiba's and rivals' investments in hard drive production signal a strategic shift as AI-driven storage needs propel the technology back to centre stage, boosting suppliers like Toshiba and its component vendors.",
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}