Seagate has showcased a lab-prototype hard drive with a massive density of 6.9TB per platter, paving the way for colossal 55TB drives in the near future. Powered by the latest HAMR tech, and shown off during an academic conference in Japan, the new platter represents roughly a doubling in capacity per area compared to commercially available drives, marking a new milestone for the brand. However, the company isn’t stopping here, as it’s already running simulations for 8TB platters, and targeting 2033 for 10TB.
HAMR (heat-assisted magnetic recording) technology uses a tiny laser to briefly heat up a microscopic area of the platter just when a write happens. This heating reduces magnetic coercivity, which enables the recording head to flip the polarity of a single bit at a time, requiring a much smaller physical size to write. After cooling, which happens in just nanoseconds, the bits become stable again. As a result, HAMR drives offer much higher areal density per platter than usual drives. We’ve already seen 3TB+ HAMR platters in Seagate’s latest 30TB EXOS drives, but 6.9TB opens the door for much larger capacities.
Indeed, with eight of these 6.9TB platters stacked in a drive, you’ll be rocking up to a 55TB total capacity. That said, the company didn’t share any estimates about expected read/write speeds. Based on the latest Exos M 30TB HDDs, we can expect these 55TB drives to sustain sequential transfers around 270MB/s with random 4K IOPS on the order of a few hundred, assuming there’s no performance difference.
This makes them an ideal choice for high-density storage systems such as cloud datacentres, backup units, or NAS arrays, where capacity is more important than speed. Using fewer drives to achieve the same capacity will result in simpler arrays, with lower power and cooling demands, and less rack space required.
But that’s not all, Seagate says it’s ready to begin production of 7TB platters and above, targeting early 2030. The company expects to be shipping 40-44TB drives by 2028, 50-60TB disks by around 2031, and 80TB+ beyond 2033. The later drives could feature even denser platters that offer 10TB and 15TB each. Understandably, Seagate will have to ensure stable behaviour during read/write cycles, and most importantly, data longevity over years of operation.
While this shows that hard drives haven’t said their final word, SSD manufacturers won’t let them be, as some companies have already started presenting 256TB SSDs, while targeting 512TB as soon as 2027. As such, HAMR drives will need to be priced competitively in terms of price per terabyte to stay relevant.
