The data is from the upcoming November 2026 Digital Storage Technology Newsletter .

We do not know for sure the total number of HDDs delivered last quarter because neither Seagate or Western Digital reported their unit shipment numbers, average disk capacity or average HDD sales price. However, Seagate and Western Digital say that they are focused on increasing capacity per drive rather than unit shipments. Toshiba says that they are looking to invest in additional HDD production capacity with a goal of capturing 30% of the market.

Total exabytes shipped in C3Q 2026 were up 4.7% compared with C2Q 2026 (527.8EB versus 504.3EB). HDD revenues (estimated at about $9.1B) were up about 16.7% from the prior quarter.

Seagate said their overall revenue was $4,233 for C3Q 2026 (up 16.7% from the prior quarter). Seagate did not provide data to determine how much of this revenue was from HDDs and how much from non-HDD revenue. Seagate said that data center revenue was $3,449M, or about 81% of total revenue for the quarter (probably combined system and HDD data center revenue). Total HDD storage capacity shipped was 220EB with 198EB for Nearline HDDs (90.0%), the balance of 22EB was shipped for non-nearline applications. Seagate gave no information to allow estimating the average capacity of the shipped HDDs or the average sales price (ASP) of their drives.

WD said that their overall revenue was $4,381M in C3Q 2026 (up 16.8% from the prior quarter) and that cloud revenue was 88% or $3,855M. They didn’t break out HDD only revenue. They also said that they shipped 248EB of total HDD storage in the quarter with 223EB (90.0% of the total) shipped for nearline applications. 25EB were shipped for non-nearline applications. WDC gave little guidance on the total number of HDDs shipped, or of nearline HDD unit shipments. WDC gave no information to allow estimating the average capacity of the shipped HDDs or the average sales price (ASP) of their drives.

For C3Q 2026 Toshiba shipped 59.83EB on 5.33M HDDs. Our estimate is this was for about $1,291M revenue.

Total exabytes shipped so far in 2026 are 1,509.6 Exabytes and total revenue so far in 2026 is $25,763. We are in line for over 50% higher industry revenue in 2026 versus 2025 and 27% higher capacity shipped in 2026 versus 2025.

The first pie chart below shows market share of exabyte shipments by company so far in 2026 and the second pie chart shows estimated HDD revenue market share by company so far in 2026.

YEAR TO DATE EXABYTE SHIPMENTS BY COMPANY.

TOTAL YEAR TO DATE REVENUE SHIPMENTS BY COMPANY.

The figure below projects total shipments of HDD storage capacity on an annual basis to 2030.

The HDD industry exabyte shipments were up about 4.7% and revenue up about 16.7% in C3Q 2026 compared to the prior quarter. Overall, we project about 50% higher revenue and 27% higher capacity shipments in 2026 versus 2025.