History (1995): Seagate to Open HDD Factory in Ireland

Seagate Technology (Scotts Valley, CA) will open a 155,000 square foot plant to produce HDD units in Clonmel, Ireland.

The new plant will occupy the premises where Digital Equipment ceased production of power supplies 2 years ago.

The Californian company’s investment is estimated at around $35 million, for a highly automated factory with almost 800employees who will initially assemble and test 1GB 3.5-inch disks.

Mid-October 1996 is set as the tentative date for production to begin. At full capacity, more than 25,000 gigabyte-plus disk drives will be produced daily.

“The new facility will more specifically support Seagate’s European market demand, which represented 30% of Seagate’s March quarter, 1995 revenues,” said Ron Verdoorn, executive VP and CEO, storage products group.

As far as we know, the only other HDD plants currently in Europe are: Conner Peripherals in Italy, IBM in Germany and soon in Hungary, Calluna Technology (1.8-inch PCMCIA disks) and MKE (Matsushita group) for Quantum in Scotland, Xyratex (ex-IBM) in England, and possibly Gigastorage International (5.25-inch disks) in France.

In late 1990, Seagate had already announced an agreement, again with the same Irish Development Agency, to set up a HDD drive factory in the Dublin area. It was to be a $50 million investment, originally expected to recruit 600 people. When asked about this former project, Al Shugart remembered having gone on local television for the event, but failed to recall exactly why the undertaking never came into being.

“Mirrored by the recent expansion of our Springtown operation in Northern Ireland, Clonmel will raise the total number of sustainable jobs created by Seagate on the island of Ireland to over 1,600,” added Verdoorn.

The disk company also recently announced a new one million square-foot “Seagate City” facility in Singapore, and a 50,000 square-foot manufacturing operation in the People’s Republic of China.

These new operations will bring total WW manufacturing capability to more than 20 million disk drives per year, nearly one third of total WW production of all manufacturers in 1994.

This article is an abstract of news published on the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter on issue 89, published on June 1995.

Note: Seagate closed in December 1997 this factory in Clonmel, Ireland, resulting in the loss of 1,400 jobs.