Western Digital is slightly behind rival Seagate in adopting heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR), which promises significant improvements in areal density and HDD capacity. Still, the company expects hard drives using this recording method to be mass-produced within the next year and a half. This technology will open the door for nearline drives offering capacities of 40 TB to 50 TB in the next few years.
Seagate recently announced that 32 TB nearline hard drives with HAMR technology are just a few months away, followed by 36 TB and 40 TB HDDs. With the introduction of 32 TB hard drives, Seagate definitely takes the lead when it comes to capacity. Currently, the largest capacity drive Western Digital has is the Ultrastar DC HC670 26 TB. Set of UltraSMR technologies. At a recent conference, financial analysts asked Western Digital when they expected the company’s HAMR HDDs to arrive. The company expects these propulsions to go into mass production within about a year and a half.
“From the HAMR side, it’s probably going to take a year to a year and a half or more to get into mass production anyway,” Western Digital chief financial officer Wissam Jabre said at the Bank of America Securities 2023 Global Technology Conference. mentioned in (via) looking for alpha).
HAMR is a very complex technology. This requires a new platter that can withstand intense localized heating above ~450°C (generated using a laser with a wavelength of ~810 nm and a power of ~20 mW) without deformation over time. . These platters are expected to be made from a glass substrate and covered with a thin Fe-Pt alloy magnetic layer to ensure reliability and withstand eventual deformation.
“HAMR could be one of the next things on the roadmap.” said Jabre. “[…] Our engineering team has done a lot of research and development on: [HAMR] […], requires a great deal of effort not only in physics, but also in materials science. But it also needs a lot of work from a commercialization point of view. This means that you can manufacture it on a large scale, get the yields you need and get a reliable product that can last for years. So it takes time to get there. “
All HDD manufacturers have been working on HAMR HDDs for over a decade, but only Seagate decided to take a bold bet on HAMR. In contrast, Toshiba and Western Digital employed energy-assisted perpendicular magnetic recording (ePMR) and microwave-assisted magnetic recording (MAMR) before adopting HAMR.
Western Digital’s roadmap includes twond ePMR 2nd generation platform enabling areal densities over 1.3 Tb/inch2 (18% better than ePMR). Such areal density will allow the company to build 3.5-inch platters with capacities over his 3.5 TB. Western Digital will therefore be able to offer HDDs with capacities up to 36 TB with 10 such disks in the next few quarters. On the other hand, the company states that the technology will be used for CMR HDDs with capacity points from 24TB to 30TB and above.
The key question, of course, is when exactly such drives will be announced, certified, and shipped. But at least for the time being, Western Digital seems intent on staying competitive with Seagate on HDD capacity.
As for HAMR, Western Digital expects this recording technology to enable areal densities in excess of 2 Tb/inch.2This allows you to build a 3.5 inch platter of about 5.4 TB and opens the door to HDDs with capacities of about 50 TB and above.
