SMR

Seagate on Wednesday introduced its Exos X24 family of hard drives, it's highest capacity series of drives to date. The new family is comprised of both conventional magnetic recording technology (CMR) and shingled magnetic recording (SMR) models, with the CMR drive topping out at 24 TB, while SMR brings the peak capacity up to 28 TB. Both are, as of now, the highest-capacity HDDs in their respective segments. But perhaps the most important technological development with the Exos X24 lineup is that it uses a platform that will be largely re-used for the upcoming HAMR drives. The Seagate Exos X24 3.5-inch helium-filled hard drive family includes 12 TB, 16 TB, 20 TB, and 24 TB models, which are built using up to 10 2.4 TB...

Western Digital Preps 28 TB UltraSMR Hard Drive

Western Digital is gearing up to start sampling of its 28 TB nearline hard drive for hyperscalers. The new HDD will use the company's energy-assisted perpendicular magnetic recording (ePMR...

19 by Anton Shilov on 8/1/2023

Big Leap for Hard Drive Capacities: 32 TB HAMR Drives Due Soon, 40TB on Horizon

Offering a brief update on the future of hard drives, Seagate has shared some fresh insights concerning launch of its next generation hard drives featuring its heat-assisted magnetic recording...

29 by Anton Shilov on 6/8/2023

Seagate Confirms 30TB+ HAMR HDDs in Q3, Envisions 50TB Drives in a Few Years

Seagate this week confirmed plans to launch the industry's first 30+ TB hard drive that uses its heat assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) technology, as well as reaffirming its commitment...

70 by Anton Shilov on 1/27/2023

Destination 30 TB: HDD Vendors Plan Different Routes to Hit Storage Milestone in 2023

In the recent months all three hard drive manufacturers — Seagate, Toshiba, and Western Digital — and some of their partners have outlined plans to ship 30TB HDDs already...

24 by Anton Shilov on 6/3/2022

Western Digital Announces 22TB CMR and 26TB SMR HDDs: 10 Platters plus ePMR

Western Digital is announcing the sampling of its new 22TB CMR and 26TB SMR hard drives today at its What's Next Western Digital Event. As usual, the hyperscale cloud...

25 by Ganesh T S on 5/9/2022

Toshiba Updates Canvio Portable Storage Lineup with Flex and Gaming HDDs

Hard disk drives still rule the roost when dealing with bus-powered portable storage devices that are economical on a $/Gb basis, particularly at higher capacity points. Seagate and Western...

12 by Ganesh T S on 8/31/2020

The Next Step in SSD Evolution: NVMe Zoned Namespaces Explained

In June we saw an update to the NVMe standard. The update defines a software interface to assist in actually reading and writing to the drives in a way...

46 by Billy Tallis on 8/6/2020

Western Digital Roadmap Updates: Energy Assisted Recording, Multi-Stage Actuators, Zoned Storage

Between CES at the beginning of the month, a series of presentations at Storage Field Day last week and a quarterly earnings report this week, we've heard from just...

115 by Billy Tallis on 1/31/2020

Western Digital Begins to Sample 18 TB & 20 TB ‘Energy Assisted’ Hard Drives

Western Digital has started partner sampling of its 18 TB and 20 TB energy-assisted magnetic recording (EAMR) drives. The HDDs utilize WD's up and coming EAMR tech to further...

23 by Anton Shilov on 12/23/2019

Seagate: 18 TB HDD Due in First Half 2020, 20 TB Drive to Ship in Late 2020

Seagate last week clarified its high-capacity HDD roadmap during its earnings call with analysts and investors. The company is on track to ship its first commercial HAMR-based hard drives...

37 by Anton Shilov on 11/5/2019

Western Digital 20 TB HDD: Crazy Capacity for Cold Storage

As operators of cloud datacenters need more storage capacity, higher capacity HDDs are being developed. As data hoarders need more capacity, higher capacity HDDs are needed. Last week Western...

50 by Anton Shilov on 9/11/2019

Seagate Backup Plus Portable 5TB & Backup Plus Slim 2TB Review: SMR for the Consumer Market

Hard drives continue to remain the storage media of choice for cost-conscious consumers with bulk storage requirements. HDD vendors have typically used their 2.5" drives for bus-powered high-capacity models...

65 by Ganesh T S on 6/18/2019

Seagate Ships 16 TB CMR Hard Drives, Preps 18 TB SMR HDDs

Continuing the march of progress in the HDD industry, Seagate has revealed that they have started shipping their 16 TB PMR hard drives. In a quarterly earnings call last...

27 by Anton Shilov on 5/6/2019

Western Digital: Over Half of Data Center HDDs Will Use SMR by 2023

Western Digital said at OCP Global Summit last week that over half of hard drives for data centers will use shingled magnetic recording (SMR) technology in 2023. At present...

33 by Anton Shilov on 3/19/2019

Toshiba's HDD Tech Roadmap: A Mix of SMR, MAMR, TDMR, and HAMR

In an interview published this week with Blocks & Files, Toshiba outlined the company will be relying on a mix of hard drive technologies in order to keep increasing...

12 by Anton Shilov on 3/13/2019

New Halo 15TB HDDs: Western Digital Unveils the Ultrastar DC HC620

Western Digital this week introduced its new Ultrastar DC HC620 family of hard drives that consists of 14 TB and 15 TB models. The HDDs use shingled magnetic recording...

19 by Anton Shilov on 10/26/2018

Western Digital Now Shipping 14 TB HDDs: HGST Ultrastar Hs14 with 1000 Gb/in2

Western Digital has started to ship its new HGST Ultrastar Hs14 hard drives, promoted as being suitable for cloud datacenters and for hyperscale developments. The capacity increase from its...

34 by Anton Shilov on 11/1/2017

Western Digital: Sales of Helium-Filled HDDs Accelerating, 15M Sold So Far

Western Digital recently announced that it had sold 15 million helium-filled hard drives, indicating that sales of such HDDs are accelerating. Since the launch of the HGST HelioSeal platform...

29 by Anton Shilov on 5/13/2017

Seagate Ships 35th Millionth SMR HDD, Confirms HAMR-Based Drives in Late 2018

Seagate last week made two rather important announcements regarding its current and upcoming hard drives. First, the company said that it had shipped 35 million HDDs based on shingled...

19 by Anton Shilov on 5/3/2017

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