Hitachi Global Storage Technologies has opened a massive disk drive plant in Shenzhen the company expects will eventually produce half of its annual drive output.

According to Hitachi GST, the opening of the plant, named Hitachi Global Storage Products (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd (Hitachi GSP), represents the first phase of an estimated $500 million investment in the new facility.

The plant centralizes all aspects of HDD production, including component manufacturing, supplier network, product assembly and final delivery, which the company said increases efficiency, speeds time-to-market, and places tighter controls over product quality and delivery.

Although losses in disk drive operations hampered overall Hitachi earnings the past quarter, forecasts of double-digit industry growth prompted Hitachi GST chose to invest in additional disk drive and component-related manufacturing capacity.

Hitachi GSP is expected to employ nearly 7,000 people in its first phase. The new facility will initially produce 3.5-inch hard disk drives, but ultimately be capable of producing HDDs of varying form factors.