Fabrik Inc. was a

manufacturer Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer to ...

of external

hard drives A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with magne ...

and digital content management

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated software documentation, documentation and data (computing), data. This is in contrast to Computer hardware, hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. ...

and services. Fabrik claims it was the third largest supplier of external storage products in North America in 2007. It is headquartered in San Mateo, with offices in Santa Ana and Culver City, California. The company sells external hard drives and online backup

in a bundled product for

consumer A consumer is a person or a group who intends to order, or uses purchased goods, products, or services primarily for personal, social, family, household and similar needs, who is not directly related to entrepreneurial or business activities. ...

s, small business users and audio/video (A/V) content creation professionals. The company also hosts the free online digital content management and sharing site, Joggle. Fabrik's product lines include SimpleTech,

G-Technology SanDisk Professional (previously G-Technology) is a brand of Western Digital that produces external storage products designed and marketed for the Macintosh, creative pro, photography and A/V markets. Its USB, FireWire, eSATA, SAS, SCSI Thunde ...

, Joggle and Fabrik Ultimate Backup.

History

Fabrik was founded as a Web-based software company in August 2005 by former Maxtor executives Mike Cordano and Keyur Patel. Anaal Udaybabu designed a brand identity for on-the-web storage. The following month, the company disclosed the completion of its series A funding of $4.1 million followed by $8 million in series B funding in July 2006 and $14.3 million in February 2007. Then in May 2007, the company received $24.9 million in funding, bringing the total to about $51.3 million in funding. In February 2006, Fabrik partnered with Maxtor (acquired by Seagate in 2005) to develop Maxtor Fusion, a

network-attached storage Network-attached storage (NAS) is a file-level (as opposed to block-level storage) computer data storage server connected to a computer network providing data access to a heterogeneous group of clients. The term "NAS" can refer to both the tech ...

(NAS) device built for organizing and sharing digital files, and in late 2006 the company launched myfabrik.com, which organized and stored digital

media Media may refer to: Communication * Media (communication), tools used to deliver information or data ** Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising ** Broadcast media, communications delivered over mass e ...

online. In February 2007, the company acquired the

business of SimpleTech, inheriting the SimpleTech product line of external hard drives for consumers and small businesses. In January 2008, Fabrik acquired

and inherited a suite of external hard drives for Mac, creative pro, photography and A/V markets, including FireWire eSATA, USB, SCSI and Fibre Channel storage products. Fabrik's acquisitions and the introduction of Joggle at the DEMO conference in January 2008 created four brands: SimpleTech, G-Technology, Joggle and Fabrik Ultimate Backup. SimpleTech and G-Technology products were still branded as such and maintained separate online website entities. On February 23, 2009,

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies HGST, Inc. (Hitachi Global Storage Technologies) was a manufacturer of hard disk drives, solid-state drives, and external storage products and services. It was initially a subsidiary of Hitachi, formed through its acquisition of IBM's disk d ...

announced it agreed to acquire Fabrik. At this point Fabrik revenue for the year (2009) was estimated at $350M to $400M range and growing 40% on yearly basis. On April 6, 2009, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies completed the acquisition, which formed the core of Hitachi GST's new Branded Business division. Following the acquisition, the subsidiary was branded 'G-Technology by Hitachi'.

Products and services

The company's SimpleTech products are external hard drives for mainstream consumers and small business users. It includes

portable Portable may refer to: General * Portable building, a manufactured structure that is built off site and moved in upon completion of site and utility work * Portable classroom, a temporary building installed on the grounds of a school to provide ...

external hard drives and

desktop A desktop traditionally refers to: * The surface of a desk (often to distinguish office appliances that fit on a desk, such as photocopiers and printers, from larger equipment covering its own area on the floor) Desktop may refer to various compu ...

external hard drives. All SimpleTech products come bundled with free local backup software and online backup capabilities. The SimpleTech erive has a 100 percent recyclable enclosure and several energy and resource efficiency features. The company claims the erive is the world's most eco-friendly, resource conscious external hard drive. The original design of the SimpleTech portable external storage product line was inspired by the Ferrari

design A design is a plan or specification for the construction of an object or system or for the implementation of an activity or process or the result of that plan or specification in the form of a prototype, product, or process. The verb ''to design' ...

team

Pininfarina Pininfarina S.p.A. (short for Carrozzeria Pininfarina) is an Italian car design firm and coachbuilder, with headquarters in Cambiano, Turin, Italy. The company was founded by Battista "Pinin" Farina in 1930. On 14 December 2015, the Indian ...

. Fabrik started a free online digital content management site called Joggle in early 2008. The Web site searches for

video Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) syst ...

, photos and

music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspe ...

on a user's computer, external hard drive or online communities and networking sites and automatically consolidates it into a single online organizing and sharing tool. The company also has a pure online backup approach, Fabrik Ultimate Backup, where

data In the pursuit of knowledge, data (; ) is a collection of discrete Value_(semiotics), values that convey information, describing quantity, qualitative property, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of sy ...

can be backed up to remote servers using 128-bit SSL and

Blowfish Tetraodontidae is a family of primarily marine and estuarine fish of the order Tetraodontiformes. The family includes many familiar species variously called pufferfish, puffers, balloonfish, blowfish, blowies, bubblefish, globefish, swellfis ...

encryption In cryptography, encryption is the process of encoding information. This process converts the original representation of the information, known as plaintext, into an alternative form known as ciphertext. Ideally, only authorized parties can de ...

.Jon L. Jacobi, November 27, 2007.
Ultimate Backup is a super handy way to keep your files remotely backed up
" PC World. Retrieved on November 5, 2008.

References

External links

Archived Fabrik siteArchived Fabrik by Hitachi Global Storage Technologies site
{{Hitachi Hitachi Hard disk drives Portable hard drives Computer companies established in 2005 Backup software American companies established in 2005