Toshiba Invests Hundreds of Millions to Double HDD Production

The rapid development of artificial intelligence has triggered a shortage of not only high-speed SSDs, but also traditional hard drives. Driven by surging demand from data centers, Japanese corporation Toshiba has announced massive investments in expanding HDD manufacturing.

Millions in Investments and Philippines Expansion

Toshiba, which holds third place in the global hard drive market with a capacity-based share of just over 10%, intends to strengthen its position and eventually boost its market share to 30%. To do so, the company will allocate around $380 million in the next fiscal year (starting April 1, 2027) to upgrade and expand its plant in the Philippines.

This marks the manufacturer's largest investment in this sector over the past five years. As part of the project, the company will not only launch new production lines, but also raise factory automation levels, reducing the need for additional personnel by 40% while improving yields.

Course Toward 100 Terabytes and Automation

Alongside scaling capacity, Toshiba is working on increasing recording density. In the near future, drives with 40% higher capacity will enter mass production, with engineers eventually aiming for 100 TB drives. By 2030, Toshiba plans to roll out 65 TB hard drives.

Why the Hard Drive Era Is Far From Over

According to IDC analysts, the total volume of global data will quadruple between 2024 and 2030 to reach 718 zettabytes, with up to 60% of this information continuing to be stored on HDDs due to their cost efficiency.

Toshiba’s primary competitors are also reporting unprecedented demand. Seagate has completely sold out its server drive quota for the current year, with contracts booked out through 2028 with key clients. Meanwhile, Western Digital plans to invest $1 billion in research and development for new magnetic recording technologies in Japan alone.