Toshiba to Double Hard Drive Output by Fiscal 2027
The company plans a 60 billion yen investment to expand its manufacturing operations in the Philippines.
Updated on Oct. 20, 2026 in Data Centers
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Toshiba will invest 60 billion Japanese yen to double its hard disk drive production capacity for AI data centers by fiscal 2027. The expansion at the firm's Philippine facility marks its first major investment in hard drive manufacturing in five years.
Why it matters
As cloud providers navigate storage shortages, demand for high-capacity nearline hard disk drives is rising alongside massive global data growth. This investment aims to help the company boost its storage market share while meeting the needs of modern AI-driven infrastructure.
The expansion will increase storage capacity per drive by up to 40% through new automated cleanroom operations. Toshiba currently holds slightly over 10% of the hard disk drive market by storage capacity, with a medium-term goal of reaching 30%.
The players
Toshiba
This multinational conglomerate is a major manufacturer of electronics and storage hardware.
The details
Toshiba will upgrade its Philippine plant with new production lines designed to support the mass production of high-capacity drives, including future 65TB-class units. This infrastructure shift is critical as the industry faces pressure to manage global data generation, which is projected to reach 718 zettabytes by 2030.
Timeline
April 2026: Toshiba began sampling M12 nearline drives.
Fiscal 2027: Target date for doubling hard disk drive production capacity.
2030: Target date for mass production of 65TB-class drives.
The Tech Race
Toshiba is positioning itself to compete more aggressively in the enterprise storage sector by scaling production of high-capacity nearline hard disk drives. This move represents a strategic effort to capture more value in a market where hard drives currently remain significantly cheaper than enterprise solid state drives.
The expansion focuses on increasing the capacity of enterprise-level storage hardware, which helps manage the backend costs of cloud-based services. By increasing the volume of available high-capacity hard drives, Toshiba aims to alleviate supply shortages that currently pressure cloud providers to rely on costlier solid state alternatives.
The takeaway
The move underscores the industry's continued reliance on hard disk drives as the primary storage medium for the bulk of global data. Readers should note that while solid state drives offer faster speeds, hard drives remain the economical backbone for massive data center storage needs.
Further reading
For more context on storage infrastructure, visit the Data Centers section.
Source note: This article includes information reported by Evertiq.
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