In this podcast, Antony Adshead chats with Jason Feist, Seagate’s senior vice-president for marketing in products and markets. They dive into how hard disk drives can surpass 40TB and even 50TB.
Jason explains the technology behind it, focusing on heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR), which increases areal density and lets us pack more data onto each platter. He also shares insights on the future of HDDs and the different applications where they shine.
Right now, hard drives sit in the low to mid-20s terabyte range. So, how do manufacturers plan to boost that capacity? Jason expresses his enthusiasm about being in the hard drive industry at a transformative time, highlighting the rebound in various markets. He emphasizes the innovation happening across several fields, thanks to talented engineers in the supply chain. They’re working on mechanical advancements and new recording technologies that will let us store more data on each drive.
He mentions ongoing improvements in wafer and media measurement processes, which enhance control and consistency. Areal density is the core focus for HDD development, and many new techniques are making waves. Better simulations, increased use of GPUs, and artificial intelligence have opened up new design possibilities, setting the stage for larger capacity drives.
Looking ahead, Jason sees promising developments in the next five years. He notes that this year alone has brought the introduction of 28TB hard drives, and Seagate’s already rolling out samples that can achieve 3TB per platter. He’s optimistic about reaching 4TB and 5TB capacities per disk soon. Imagine a 10-disk hard drive delivering 40TB to 50TB—that’s on the horizon, and it’s all thanks to HAMR technology, which has been in development for the past 15 to 20 years. Just as perpendicular recording shaped the last two decades, HAMR is set to drive the industry forward.
The surge in demand for cloud storage is a big motivator. As cloud usage expands, the need for larger hard drives intensifies, keeping innovation at the forefront.
When it comes to the future of spinning disk hard drives, Jason showcases the diverse range of customers—from large cloud providers to enterprises and even consumers. Each segment has its own storage needs. Excitingly, emerging use cases like AI are amplifying the demand, showing how crucial data is for informed decision-making in today’s society.
He confidently asserts that HDDs will stick around for a long time. Current innovations will reshape how we use high-capacity drives, particularly in cloud environments where efficiency and scalability are key.
New business models are surfacing around hard drives. Industries like advertising, social media, and video content are perfect fits for what HDDs offer—massive storage capabilities, sustained data transfer rates, and efficient architectures that operate globally.
As more content creators leverage generative AI to produce richer material quickly, the need for robust data storage becomes even clearer. HDDs have been, and will continue to be, fundamental to meeting the demands of data storage on an exabyte scale.