The large capacities have been made possible through two magnetic recording technologies: Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR) and Microwave Assisted Magnetic Recording (MAMR).
HAMR technology significantly enhances writing capabilities by heating the disk material with a near-field laser. HAMR does have its critics, with questions regarding the technology’s readiness, quality, reliability and compatibility, but all of the major drive manufactures are adopting it, and Seagate recently announced the results of an experimental test in which one of its Mozaic 3+ HAMR-equipped drives ran continuously, and problem free, for over 6,000 hours.
Yo MAMR!
Using HAMR, coupled with Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR), which increases storage capacity by overlapping data tracks, allowed Toshiba to successfully achieve a drive capacity of 32TB over 10 x 3TB platters.
The second technology, MAMR, uses microwaves to boost magnetic recording abilities. Toshiba was a pioneering champion of this technology, having started mass production of the first-generation drives back in 2021. With the combination of SMR technology, improved signal processing, and the stacking of 11 platters, the company says it achieved 31TB capacity.
Larry Martinez-Palomo, Toshiba’s Vice President and Head of Storage Products Division, said “Toshiba is concurrently advancing the development of future generation high-capacity HDDs using both HAMR and MAMR technologies. Mass production of hard disk drives incorporating HAMR will commence after the validation phase is completed. In the interim, Toshiba will continue to satisfy the demand for high-capacity, high-reliability storage devices with hard disk drives employing the field-proven MAMR technology.”
Toshiba expects to begin shipping test HAMR HDDs, with a capacity ranging from 28 to 30TB, in 2025.
