Seagate has announced that it would increase the size of hard drives in 2023, starting with 22 TB and 24 TB drives during the first half of 2023. The company plans to launch the first HDD with heat-assisted magnetic recording technology, also known as HAMR drives, during the third quarter of 2023.
Seagate announces 22 TB & 24 TB hard drives this year, up to 50 TB HDDs expected by end of 2023
The new HAMR HDDs should produce capacities over 30 TB in size. Seagate has had the latest drive technology under advisement by customers over the last several years and believes the drives to be ready for mass launch.
There is not much information from Seagate about the new HAMR drive technology, but the company does mention that they are ahead of schedule in preparing the latest drives for mass production. The company also states that sales figures for the new HDDs will be relatively low but expected to rise with more adoption over time.
The above roadmap from Seagate shows that HAMR hard drives will reach 50 TB capacities as soon as 2026 but does not reveal in the above slide their CMR/PMR (Conventional Magnetic Recording and Perpendicular Magnetic Recording) and SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording) drives. The company is expected to launch ten-disk hard disk drives with 2.2 TB and 22 TB for CMR/PMR HDDs, while the SMR HDDs are expected to reach up to 20 TB. The high-capacity HDDs will replace the current 20 TB and 22 TB CMR/PMR and SMR HDDs, respectively.
— Dave Mosley, Chief Executive Officer, Seagate
Seagate’s recent sales numbers for 2022 reveal increased revenue and non-GAAP earnings per share. The second quarter revenue for Seagate gained $1.887 billion in the company’s 2023 fiscal year, which was less than its 2022 second quarter fiscal year revenue, reaching $3.116 billion. Seagate also reported that the gross profit margin for the company dropped over seventeen percent, from 30.4% down to 13%. The company’s net loss was said to be $33 million.
News Source: IT Home
