About 10 years ago there were seven big players on the hard disk drive (HDD) business: Seagate, Samsung, Western Digital, Hitachi, Quantum, Toshiba, and Fujitsu. But things have changed a lot during this time.

In 2001, Maxtor bought Quantum’s HDD division. In 2005, Seagate bought Maxtor’s HDD division. In 2009, Toshiba bought Fujitsu’s HDD division. Early this year, Western Digital bought Hitachi’s HDD division, and this week Seagate announced the acquisition of Samsung’s HDD division for about USD 1.375 billion (50% cash / 50% stock).

So from now on, there will be only three big players on the hard disk drive market: Seagate, Western Digital and Toshiba.