Seagate, Western Digital’s major opponent, is about to give it some fierce competition. The two businesses, which currently hold the majority of the spinning media industry, have recently outdone one another in terms of storage capacity. With its brand-new 26TB hard drives, WD has claimed the capacity crown. Now, Seagate plans to surpass that number with 30TB hard drives that it claims will be available in one year.
The second generation of Seagate’s Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording technology, or HAMR, is the key to the company’s increased storage density. Since 2018, it has employed its first-generation HAMR, although never on a high-volume item. The business predicted last year that its second-generation HAMR will enable 30TB and higher capacity. A laser is used to heat the material to 450 degrees Celsius, and it is quickly cooled to room temperature.
It’s a significant thing for Seagate to switch to the HAMR range of hard drives, which is mass-produced. It calls for essentially a brand-new drive with new media, heads, actuators, and other components. The trade-off is that it will open the door to phenomenal increases in areal density during the following years. There are 1.116 Tb/inch2 of areal density in Seagate’s 20TB at this time. It may be boosted by more than double to 2.6 Tb/inch2 with HAMR. By 2030, it anticipates reaching 6 Tb/inch2. Theoretically, 100TB hard drives might be possible, according to Tom’s Hardware.
Despite the challenges, Seagate nevertheless intends to carry out its plans. According to its roadmap, it will start making 30TB HDDs in 2019 and 40TB in 2024. A 50TB hard drive should be available by the year 2025.
Seagate’s innovations are announced during a challenging time for the magnetic storage market. A research last week revealed that the shipments of HDDs had decreased by nearly 30% from the previous year. Soft PC demand and the continuous switch to solid-state storage are the main causes of the decline. Seagate’s 30TB drives are most likely to end up in data centers, at least initially, as long as there is still a consistent demand for them.
