Toshiba announces new hard drives aimed at data centers seeking high capacity.

Toshiba is introducing hard drives within the new Mx11 series. This currently includes two hard drives, both of which are intended for use in data centers and for hyperscalers.

Both drives contain ten hard drives in a standard 3.5-inch case filled with helium. Toshiba relies on a speed of 7,200 rpm and adds a 1 GiB buffer for higher performance. The drives can swallow 550 TB per year and come with a mean time between failures of 2.5 million hours.

In the Mx11 family we primarily find the MG11. This is a CMR drive with a maximum capacity of 24 TB. Toshiba also offers smaller variants, with 14 TB being the lower limit. The manufacturer specifies a maximum sustainable transfer speed of 295 MiB/s.

SMR

The MA11 uses SMR technology, which allows for a higher density of bits and bytes at the expense of peak performance. This drive is available in two versions: 28 TB and 27 TB. Toshiba did not reveal in its announcement what effect the SMR technology has on the transfer speed compared to the MG11.

Western Digital is very transparent about the presence of CMR or SMR technology. This is commendable and probably still a result of an incident several years ago that revealed a lack of transparency.

Toshiba integrates its own Microwave-assisted magnetic recording with flow controltechnology. This ensures that the manufacturer can fit as many ones and zeros as possible on a hard drive.

Toshiba plans to begin sampling the MG11 this month, with the MA11 also expected to follow later this year.