- Toshiba charts the path for hard drives from 24TB capacity to 55TB and beyond
- Storage giant targeting 40TB drives next year with new technologies
- Twelve-plate design supports Toshiba’s push toward higher capacities
Toshiba has outlined plans to push hard drive capacity well beyond current limits, with new slides showing a path to 40TB models and an eventual move towards 55TB and beyond.
PC clock says the company detailed its roadmap at a recent symposium in Japan, outlining advances in platter counts, recording technologies and materials that will shape its next generation of data center drives.
There has been a steady increase in HDD storage sizes from the 10TB models of 2017 to the current 24TB capacity. Toshiba increased density by moving from CMR designs to its FC MAMR system, expanding the number of platters from seven to nine and then ten. It subsequently increased density again with improvements in both CMR and MAMR, reaching capacities of 22 TB and 24 TB in 2024.
MAMR and HAMR
In October, we reported that Toshiba had verified a 12-disk stacking design for nearline drives, a first for the storage industry.
This approach adds two platters to the familiar ten-disc design and replaces aluminum substrates with glass, allowing for thinner disks, finer tolerances, and greater durability.
Toshiba combined the design with MAMR and said it planned to reach 40TB capacities in 2027.
The new slides, one of which can be seen above, expand on that plan. Toshiba still aims to ship a 40TB drive in 2027 using MAMR with 11 or 12 platters. A separate track, based on HAMR, is expected to exceed 40TB in 2026 with 11 platters.
MAMR and HAMR are two approaches to energy-assisted magnetic recording that raise storage density beyond what conventional methods allow.
MAMR uses a microwave field to stabilize the writing process, so that data can be written to smaller magnetic regions without losing accuracy.
HAMR relies on a small, precisely controlled burst of heat from a semiconductor laser to momentarily reduce the resistance of the medium, allowing for even finer magnetic patterns.
Both methods allow manufacturers to pack more data into each plate, although HAMR generally offers greater long-term density gains.
The roadmap shows targets of 45TB in 2028 and 55TB or more after 2029 as HAMR and the 12-platter stack mature, pointing toward what would be among the largest hard drives on the market.
The company has said it believes reaching thirteen dishes could be feasible within the same format.
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