Who makes your drives? Do you care?
Working at Seagate, I’m very aware of our market share and that of our competitors. We slice it every which way, and understand exactly how we stack up.
It sometimes catches me by surprise when I see data such as this report from CRN and The NPD Group that lists HP as the #2 disk drive vendor, right behind Seagate in the US channel in the 1st half of 2007. With my Seagate hat on, I think, “HP doesn’t make disk drives! Why would NPD report it that way?”
The reality is, our customers in the channel don’t always care who made the drive, but do care who sold it to them. That’s because they will hold their source accountable for any issues or support needed after purchase.
I struggle with this, because I believe we build a better disk drive than our competitors in most cases. That may be true, but it’s good for me to see things from your eyes, and realize it’s not all about us!
What do you think about when making a disk drive decision? Do you care if a particular vendor manufactured your drive?
The most important things to me, in order, are:
Brand (Only us Western Digital and Seagate),
Speed
Price (Dollar/GB)
I ended up looking at “brand” first because of getting burned on a few Maxtor problems a long time ago, long before Seagate acquired them. I switched to WD for a long time and came to Seagate for my current drive based on a review at Anandtech.com if my memory serves.