Deskstar
Deskstar was the name of a product line of computer hard disk drives. It was originally announced by IBM in October 1994. The line was continued by Hitachi, when in 2003 it bought IBM's hard disk drive division and renamed it Hitachi Global Storage Technologies. In 2012, Hitachi sold the division to Western Digital, who continued the drive product line brand as HGST Deskstar. In 2018, Western Digital began winding down the HGST brand, and as of 2020 it is defunct.
The first Deskstar product produced by IBM was the DALA-3540, with a capacity of 541 decimal megabytes or 516 binary megabytes; the last was the 180GXP. HGST continued the product line after the acquisition, selling the Deskstar 120GXP and Deskstar 180GXP under the HGST brand for a short time and selling new models thereafter.
The Hard [disk drive failure|unreliable] IBM Deskstar 75GXP product became notorious as the "Deathstar".Products
A list of Deskstar models, including all those manufactured by IBM and HGST while under Hitachi's management.IBM models
HGST models under Hitachi management
HGST models under WD management
The nine current models in production at WD's acquisition of HGST continued to be offered. The Deskstar 7K1000.C was the last model offered by HGST.IBM Deskstar 75GXP failures
The IBM Deskstar 75GXP became infamous circa 2001 for their reportedly high failure rates, which led to the drives being colloquially referred to as "Deathstar". Due to this, the drives were ranked 18th in PC World "Worst Tech Products of All Time" feature in 2006.Lawsuit
Despite failures being reported within the manufacturer warranty period of three years, Michael T. Granito, Jr., an American user of IBM's 75GXP hard drives, filed a class-action lawsuit against IBM on 16 October 2001 for defects in the product causing it to "crash", with both of the drives he had bought having failed within a short time. IBM was found to have misled its customers about the reliability of the drives. Without admitting responsibility, they settled this lawsuit in 2005, agreeing to pay to every user whose Deskstar 75GXP drives had failed. The settlement related to the following family of IBM Deskstar 75GXP HDD models: DTLA 307-015; DTLA 307-020; DTLA 307-030; DTLA 307-045; DTLA 307-060; DTLA 307-075.Details
A firmware update introduced wear leveling which avoids the heads dwelling too long over the same area thereby reducing the potential for head crashes. The same firmware update also fixed a possible data corruption due to a problem with Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology background operations.Aftermath
After the filing of the lawsuit, IBM unveiled the Deskstar 120GXP, and the Travelstar 60GH and 40GN on November 7, 2001.