Toshiba uses HAMR technology to build a hard drive with a capacity of 32 TB. The drive should be available for customer testing next year.

Toshiba relies on HAMR and MAMR technology. The company says it has developed two hard drives based on the new technology. One model combines HAMR and Shingle-shaped magnetic recording (SMR) for a 3.5-inch drive with ten hard drives, for a total capacity of 32 TB. The other uses MAMR and SMR with eleven drives for a total capacity of 31TB.

HAMR and variants describe new technologies that can significantly increase the capacity of hard drives in the existing format. HAMR stands for Heat-assisted magnetic recording Lasers are usually used to heat a tiny part of a hard drive to increase its capacity to hold bits and bytes. MAMR is a variant in which heating is done using microwaves instead of lasers.

Not the first

Toshiba is not a pioneer with its drives. The models described are prototypes, samples of which will go to customers in 2025. Competitor Seagate has already passed this sampling phase and began mass producing 30TB drives for cloud customers earlier this year. Seagate uses HAMR and other innovations bundled in a technology suite called Mozaic 3+.

So Toshiba is a little behind. If the drives come off the production line in large quantities, there is a good chance that the competition already has higher capacities on offer. Still, Toshiba’s innovation is important: it shows that the entire hard drive market is using HAMR on the path to greater data density. This is necessary for the mass storage of ever-increasing amounts of data in data centers.