Seagate announces 30 TB hard drives for 2023, later 50 TB and more
[14:13 Sun,14.August 2022 by Thomas Richter]
Seagate announces 30 TB hard drives for 2023, later 50 TB and more
SSDs are increasingly replacing classic HDDs in many areas, but the latter are still unbeaten in the price per TB important for working with video to archive large amounts of video material. Due to new technologies the storage density is getting higher and higher and so the available storage capacity of HDDs in the traditional 3.5" format is constantly growing. Currently, there are several HDD models (WD Gold, WD Red Pro and WD Purple Pro) with 22 TB storage capacity from Western Digital starting at a little over 700 euros in the consumer sector, which have just been released.
But of course the development continues: Western Digital&s big competitor Seagate wants to bring 30 TB hard disks onto the market in the middle of next year, then 40 TB in 2024 and finally HDDs with a capacity of 50 TB and more in 2026. This is to be made possible by laser-based HAMR technology, which is already in use, but only in special systems.
Seagate Roadmap
Higher storage density through HAMR
. Heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) technology, which has been in development for some time, solves the problem of increasing instability of the smallest magnetic storage device as miniaturization increases by using more stable materials for them that are heated by laser before an intended change in magnetization (i.e., a storage operation) to enable it. For example, when writing with HAMR, a laser is used to briefly heat the area to be written to about 450°C. To withstand this heat, disks are used. To withstand this heat, plates made of glass-ceramic are used instead of the usual aluminum alloy.
However, as you can read in our old news report from about HAMR, Seagate is far behind schedule: In 2012, Seagate had expected that 60 TB HAMR hard disks would be available within the next 10 years (i.e. 2022 at the latest) (the first 20 TB HAMR hard disk only appeared in 2020) and even later Seagate had to correct its predictions again and again. In any case, Seagate is under strong competitive pressure from Western Digital. In addition, new media, read and write heads, controllers, actuators and other components will be required due to the new HAMR technology The new media, read and write heads, controllers, actuators and other components required due to the new technology will lead to an increase in price - in contrast to Western Digital, which still relies on a combination of more traditional technologies. It remains to be seen whether Seagate will manage to keep its promises this time and really bring 30 TB hard drives to market in 2023 - and hopefully at a competitive price, too.
;)
;)
