Seagate shipped a billion hard drives in the last four years — thanks, data hogs!

Our never-ending hunger for data is helping Seagate make lots of money.

The hard drive manufacturer said today that it’s finally shipped its 2 billionth drive. Seagate says it attributes the feat in large part to the tech world’s newfound addiction to data-intensive streaming video services and social networks.

The most telling metric is this one: Seagate says it took it 29 years to ship a billion drives, but it only took it four years to reach its second billion. That makes our hunger for data sound like full-blown gluttony.

Of course, it also doesn’t hurt that Seagate is one half of the hard drive duopoly shared with rival Western Digital, which, like Seagate, has made a habit of scooping up competitors (Seagate bought Lacie last year, for example, and Samsung’s hard drive business in 2011).This has created a largely uncontested space for the two big players, so it’s not the biggest surprise that Seagate’s doing so well.