[Discussion] Seagate Appears Set to Launch 32TB HAMR Hard Drive

[Uncrowned Guard]

Seagate Preparing to Unveil their First High-Capacity HAMR Hard Drive

Seagate, a global leader in data storage solutions, appears to be on the cusp of deploying its highly-anticipated heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) for the first time. The technology, which has been in development for more than two decades, could soon be incorporated into the company's Exos M hard drives, if a newly-discovered product page is any indication. The Exos M model, powered by Seagate’s innovative Mozaic 3 Plus HAMR platform, is expected to come with a massive 32TB storage capacity.

Breaking Down the Capabilities of the Mozaic 3 Plus Technology

The core beauty of the Mozaic 3 Plus technology lies in its capability to increase hard drive capacities dramatically. It achieves this by augmenting the spatial efficiency of data bits on each disk, compressing them to be significantly smaller and denser. For writing data, an integrated laser diode - attached to the drive's recording heads - selectively heats up minuscule disk areas. The process, which Seagate ensures causes no impact on drive temperature or medium reliability, enables each bit to undergo heat treatment and cool down within the timeframe of a nanosecond.

The Exos M Hard Drive: An Asset for Enterprise Applications

The Exos M hard drive, which boasts a remarkable 3TB per platter density, is likely to prove invaluable for high-end enterprise applications. For instance, it could be an instrumental infrastructural component for power-intensive artificial intelligence systems. Although the precise launch date remains undisclosed, the current "Stay Informed" teaser on the product page strongly hints at an imminent release.

As acknowledged in a recent official filing, Seagate has "successfully completed qualification testing" of its HAMR hard drives. The testing was carried out with various mass-capacity market customers, encompassing a prominent cloud service provider. The document indicates that Seagate anticipates the commencement of HAMR-based hard drive shipping to the unnamed cloud provider in the approaching weeks.

The Landscape of High-Capacity Hard Drives: A Triangulation of Competitors

Seagate isn't the lone operational player in the high-capacity hard drive sector. Its noteworthy contemporaries include Western Digital, which launched a 32TB hard drive in October utilizing energy-assisted perpendicular magnetic recording (ePMR). Nevertheless, Toshiba has also demonstrated intriguing advancements through their deployment of HAMR and microwave-assisted magnetic recording (MAMR) in high-capacity hard drives. The articulation of such technologies signifies an exciting stage in the evolution of data storage within the industry.

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