SeagateThe largest hard drive ever is finally here, with a capacity of 32TB thanks to the company’s new HAMR technology (via Preview).
It’s been almost a year since Seagate said it finally had a product Hard drives based on heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) technology using its new Mozaic 3+ platform. HAMR drives have been highly anticipated since Seagate began experimenting with the technology in 2007.
The Mozaic 3+-based Exos driver was initially released in small quantities to select customers, but is now (almost) generally available, thanks to mass production. At this time, Seagate quietly released product page Its Exos M HDDs include a 32TB model using Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR) storage format and a 30TB model using Conventional Magnetic Recording (CMR).
Seagate seems a little confused as to whether its drive is an Exos M or an Exos M 3+. The product page simply calls it the Exos M and a video The video posted by Seagate’s official YouTube channel also says Exos M, but the URL says “exos-m-3-plus” and the title of the video mentions Exos M 3+. We’ve reached out to Seagate for clarification on the naming situation.
Unlike the first Mozaic 3+ HDDs, Exos M drives are compatible with existing computers, which is important for mass adoption. Requiring new hardware to use the new HAMR drives will obviously be a significant obstacle and drawback to upgrading. However, it’s unclear whether this means the Exos M is fundamentally different from the original Mozaic 3+ drive. The product page doesn’t provide many details on this aspect.
Seagate’s current main competition in the field of large-capacity hard drives is Western Digitalwhich ePMR-based drives launched in October, Includes 32TB model. Technically, Seagate released the 32TB HAMR drive first, but WD appears to be the first to fully launch it. Either way, the two companies are neck-and-neck in the capacity race, but Seagate may have the upper hand in future versions thanks to HAMR.