Seagate prepares to launch world’s first high-capacity HDDs based on HAMR technology

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Forward-looking: Heat-assisted magnetic recording is a technological breakthrough that has been decades in the making. The first patent describing a method for using heat to record data through a magnetic field dates back to 1954. Seagate began researching “modern” HAMR hard drives in the 1990s. Now, the American manufacturer is finally shipping its first commercially available HAMR hard drives.

Seagate introduced its Mozaic 3+ platform earlier this year, announcing that the world’s first heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) hard disk drives were on the horizon. The company has now launched a dedicated product page for the new drives, though customers cannot purchase them just yet. Pricing remains a mystery as well, though it’s expected to be steep – likely enough to make many data hoarders wince.

According to Seagate, 90 percent of the components used to build Exos M drives come from previous generations. Two models have been unveiled: one with a 30TB capacity and another with 32TB. The 30TB drive uses conventional magnetic recording (CMR), while the 32TB model employs the controversial shingled magnetic recording (SMR) technique.

Both feature an impressive data density of 3TB per platter and adhere to the industry-standard 3.5-inch form factor for ease of scalability and integration. Seagate claims the Exos M drives are also more energy-efficient, offering three times the efficiency per terabyte compared to typical HDDs. Additionally, they are built for reliability, use recycled materials for greater sustainability, and are engineered to optimize heat dissipation.

Earlier this month, a financial filing revealed that Seagate had successfully completed qualification tests for its Mozaic 3+ drives with multiple customers in the “mass capacity” market. Seagate CEO Dave Mosley confirmed that the company expects initial shipments of HAMR products to a “leading” cloud service provider in the coming weeks.

HAMR technology employs a laser diode attached to each recording head to heat a minuscule area of the disk. This process enables a higher density of digital bits to be written onto the platter. According to Seagate, the entire sequence of heating, writing, and cooling happens in less than one nanosecond.

With HAMR drives now on the verge of release, Seagate is already planning for the next wave of innovations, aiming for larger areal densities of 4TB per platter or more. Having tested over 500,000 Mozaic 3+ hard drives, Seagate claims that HAMR HDDs are just as reliable as traditional magnetic drives. Meanwhile, Western Digital has begun shipping a new 32TB HDD using SMR technology, though it has yet to adopt HAMR for its storage solutions.