HGST, Seagate, Toshiba, WD found Storage Products Association

HGST, a Western Digital company, has collaborated with Seagate, Toshiba and WD to form the Storage Products Association (SPA). The SPA will help promote the important and growing role of Hard Disk Drives (HDDs) and new innovations driven by HDDs.

Providing market education, the SPA's mission is to help storage customers, partners and users understand, deploy and support current and future storage needs, including the key role of HDDs and Solid State Hybrid Drives (SSHDs) in an effective storage mix for all consumer and business environments. The SPA will also participate in market research and events, as well as publish materials about end users' storage needs.

According to IDC, the digital universe will grow by a factor of 300 from 2005 to 2020, reaching 40 trillion gigabytes. With this growth trajectory, the demand for high-capacity, high-performance and cost-effective storage will continue to soar, whether it's for data stored locally, in the datacenter or in the cloud.

"We have seen the demand for storage products shift dramatically over the last ten years with the emergence of cloud computing, Internet search, social networks, big data and mobile computing," said Mark Grace, senior VP, marketing, HGST, and member of the SPA board of directors. "This period of remarkable change is driving the need for innovative and reliable high-performance and high-capacity storage with the best TCO, especially in the areas of hyperscale cloud data center infrastructures."