Seagate to Launch Mass Market 20TB HDDs in the Coming Months
Seagate is working on multiple consumer hard drives featuring a 20TB capacity that will use perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) and shingled magnetic recording (SMR) technologies, which are more cost effective than Seagate's current, business-focused HAMR technology. The company's 20TB SMR HDDs will be available in the second half of this calendar year, so they're not too far out.
"We expect to begin shipping 20TB PMR drives in the second half of this calendar year," said Dave Mosley, CEO of Seagate, during the company's earnings call with analysts and investors (via SeekingAlpha).
Seagate currently ships 20TB hard drives that use its heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) technology to select partners and inside its Lyve storage systems. However, these drives are not intended as mass market products. Instead, the company is prepping to release PMR-based 20TB HDDs (with two dimensional magnetic recording [TDMR] enhancement) for typical customers requiring high capacities, and it's also working on SMR-based 20TB drives for hyperscalers with software that can take into account shingled magnetic recording technology.
Seagate is apparently already qualifying its 20TB drives with various customers, so you can expect the company to introduce a range of 20TB HDDs aimed at different applications.
