Do HDD manufacturers produce their own R/W Heads ?

[Matiw]

Do HDD manufacturers produce their own R/W heads, or do they have sort of common suppliers, companies specializing in R/W Head manufacturing ?

[mr_spokk]

As far as I know they buy both platters and heads in from 3:rd party...But I think they have a lot to say of the production.

[fzabkar]

AFAIK, SAE Magnetics (TDK) makes heads and media for Samsung and others.

http://www.sae.com.hk/main.php?id=productservice

I believe IBM used to manufacture their own heads until they sold off their HDD business.

According to Wikipedia, "in 2003, WD acquired most of the assets of bankrupt one-time market leading magnetic hard drive read-write head developer Read-Rite Corporation".

http://www.readrite.com/profile.html

Also, "in 2007, Western Digital acquired magnetic media maker Komag".

Here is a page from the Wayback Machine:

http://web.archive.org/web/200607211900 ... ology.html

"Komag is a leading independent supplier of thin-film disks, the primary high-capacity storage medium for digital data."

"Komag has the industry’s largest customer base that includes Maxtor, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, Seagate, and Western Digital. According to IDC data (Q4 report), our customers’ sales comprise over 74% of the world’s hard disk drives sold in Q4 2005."

[Doomer]

Seagate and WD produce and use heads themselves, they also use 3rd party heads

[fzabkar]

I found the following information in the CI firmware module of my Fujitsu MPE3064AT drive.

CI000104
FCPP (Fujitsu Computer Products Corporation of the Philippines)
CA05367-B321.

MEDIA
YFL (Yamagata Fujitsu Limited)
PGMM2705M13A25

HEADS
FUJITSU
WEALS56AM

HD-IC
TI
03JA471

DCM (DC Motor)
NIDEC
F102232B3

[michael chiklis]

I found the following information in the CI firmware module of my Fujitsu MPE3064AT drive.

CI000104
FCPP (Fujitsu Computer Products Corporation of the Philippines)
CA05367-B321.

MEDIA
YFL (Yamagata Fujitsu Limited)
PGMM2705M13A25

HEADS
FUJITSU
WEALS56AM

HD-IC

TI
03JA471

DCM (DC Motor)
NIDEC
F102232B3

What tool do you use to access to Toshiba firmware modules ?

[fzabkar]

What tool do you use to access to Toshiba firmware modules ?

I don't have any Toshiba tool.

[guru]

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Kcb6a_LJaJQ


Interesting

[michael chiklis]

So how did you read that information in the firmware?
Have you created a software to access to SA?

[HaQue]

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Kcb6a_LJaJQ

Interesting

Its pretty amazing.. That's one cracker of a testing rig.. 1.5 million Disks at a time!

[fzabkar]

So how did you read that information in the firmware?
Have you created a software to access to SA?

The drive is a Fujitsu (before Toshiba's acquisition).

I used my own MHDD script to send VSCs to the drive:
http://malthus.zapto.org/viewtopic.php? ... 4313#p4313

There are several freeware tools here (eg FUJITSU Explorer, FujTool v0.4):
http://aplex86.narod.ru/firmprog.html

[michael chiklis]

Interesting!
Thank you fzabkar

[LarrySabo]

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Kcb6a_LJaJQ
Interesting

I'm more impressed with Seagate's manufacturing than Western Digital's (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTkH3-zP-lY), although I haven't checked dates the videos were produced.

[hhddrec]

interesting videos!!

[BlackST]

Toshiba ? Buy a Pc3000 UDMA for what is worth AND ( ! ) work out your own tools (SW / HW) to work with them / repair . No way out.

Same for recent Fujitsu (not from the dinosaur era like MPF, MPG, MPE - nevertheless if you have problems with their FW that is in any case hard to find screwed, it's bad times)