Showa Denko is preparing to produce 80 TB hard drive plates – review

Existing hard drive technologies are close to their limits. If you use only them, you will have to increase the physical dimensions of the drives. Because manufacturers are preparing to release models of hard drives based on HAMR and MAMR technologies.

Japanese manufacturer Showa denko announces the completion of HAMR (Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording) magnetic recording plates. This means a quick start to production.

This technology uses spot heating of the surface of the discs during recording using a laser, which allows to increase the density of the “packing” of data at times. If traditional drives are limited by a density barrier of 1.14 Tbps2the HAMR already provides 6 Tbps2. This allows you to create an HDD with a capacity of up to 80 TB in a traditional 3.5-inch form factor.

And although such a volume will not be available immediately, it is still impressive. After all, disks with traditional magnetic recording do not exceed 16 TB (and these are the most expensive models with helium inside and other tricks).

Note that plates with support for MAMR technology in Showa Denko are already being produced. Such plates are heated using a microwave beam, otherwise they go off with HAMR-based drives.

Pricing and release dates have not yet been announced. However, it is obvious that at first such disks will be available only for server systems and data centers.