I've actually still got a Priam 130MB ESDI drive somewhere in my basement. It used to be in an Everex Step 20-386. When it would power up, it sounded like a jet engine spinning up! I also remember when Seagate bought Conner and CDC, and now that I think about it, I still have a Micropolis 1GB hard drive in a Compaq computer. It was the first generation ATA drive, but no computer BIOS would support it. There was a jumper on it to make the drive "look" like a pair of 500MB drives!
You're right about there being fewer and fewer manufacturers out there...
There's Seagate (which also owns Maxtor now), Hitachi (which bought IBMs drive plants years ago), Samsung, WD, and Toshiba. I think that's about it.
Mark
I think Fujitsu is still in the game.