Seagate is launching a new HDD with HAMR technology. The 36 TB Exos M is currently being delivered to customers on a limited basis. Widespread availability of the technology, however, remains out.
Seagate announces the Exos M 36 TB. That drive joins the 32 TB HDD that the manufacturer announced back in 2023. Both hard drives are built with HAMR technology, short for Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording. Seagate is implementing HAMR as part of a technology suite it calls Mozaic 3+, which it is proud of.
Invisible mass production
Seagate has been talking about HAMR for a long time, but seems to be having trouble with mass production. The manufacturer has been supplying Exos M drives to data center customers since 2023, but it wasn’t until late last year that they seemed to effectively roll off the assembly line in volume. Even currently, the HDDs are limited to large customers, and you can’t just buy an Exos M drive for your storage server.
Seagate itself says it is in the process of scaling up its 32 TB production, but only in partnership with a major cloud provider. Of the 36 TB drives, the manufacturer is currently distributing samples.
The announcement of the 36 TB capacity is mostly accompanied by predictions for the 32 TB drive. For example, Dell Technologies would “soon” integrate the Exos M 32 TB into its storage servers.
Seagate does want to position itself as an innovator. The company, meanwhile, can achieve 6 TB per physical drive in the lab, producing 3.6 TB drives as part of the 36 TB HAMR drive. That is a unique capacity, Seagate claims.
Hunger
In practice, however, we are left a bit hungry. After years of announcements and a whole new brand name for the technology under Mozaic 3+, HAMR drives still remain mostly behind the scenes. Unnamed cloud providers are said to be working with it in volume, but we do not yet see concrete business in the market.
In that respect, the 36 TB drive is not such a spectacular announcement. Seagate will be more impressive when Mozaic 3+ (32 TB or 36 TB) is actually available in servers that average customers can buy.