Toshiba has showcased its new hard disk drives (HDDs) that utilize heat- and microwave-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR and MAMR) technologies, as well as shingled drive tracks, to increase capacity by over 40%. Currently, Toshiba’s highest capacity drive is a 22TB non-shingled MAMR model. Competitor Seagate is also in the race with 30TB and 32TB HAMR drives. At the ISC high-performance computing event, Toshiba presented the new drives and announced that the 32TB drives will be available in 2025, while the 31TB HDDs will hit the market sooner.
The 32TB model employs HAMR technology, where heat is applied via a laser to a small area on the magnetic surface during writes, allowing for more precise data storage. On the other hand, the 31TB drive uses MAMR technology, which uses a microwave field to enhance the magnetism applied to the write head. These technologies enable higher storage capacity by increasing the amount of data stored per track.
To achieve the significant capacity boost, Toshiba’s HDDs also utilize shingled magnetic recording (SMR), where data tracks are superposed or overlapped. However, SMR drives have limitations as modifying the contents of a track requires rewriting multiple tracks around it, making them suitable for write-once data like backups, archives, or read-only documents. SMR drives are commonly used for cold storage services by hyperscalers.
Rainer Kaese, a senior manager at Toshiba Electronics Europe, expects HDDs to reach capacities of 40TB or 50TB in the future, with capacities in the hundreds of terabytes possible but not necessarily commercially viable.