Seagate announces the general availability of the 30 TB Exos M and IronWolf Pro. After years of suspense, HAMR technology is finally reaching the wider public.
Seagate announced that both the 30 TB Exos M and IronWolf Pro are generally available worldwide. This also applies to the 28 TB variant. Both drives use Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR). HAMR gives the drives a very high density and enables Seagate to pack high capacity into a traditional 3.5-inch HDD.
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Seagate’s 30 TB HAMR Drives Finally Available under IronWolf Pro and Exos M Flags
The 30 TB Seagate Exos M and IronWolf Pro cost the same. Seagate communicates a recommended price of $599.99. The 28 TB variants are slightly cheaper at €569.99. The drives should be available from authorized dealers starting today.
For Server and NAS
The fact that Seagate is marketing an IronWolf model in addition to Exos indicates that a larger audience is the target this time. The IronWolf range is, after all, aimed at use in small storage servers or NAS devices.
By integrating Seagate’s IronWolf Pro 30 TB drives, we deliver petabyte-scale storage with high integrity, ensuring fast access, reliable performance, and scalable infrastructure at the edge,” says Dhaval Panara, Product Manager at NAS specialist Qnap. The other major NAS specialist, Synology, used to work closely with Seagate but is now completely closing its ecosystem with recent models in favor of its own drives. Such devices are artificially incompatible with HAMR drives.
Furthermore, drives are suitable for data collection across the country, including in the context of video surveillance.
HAMR and Mozaic 3+
No shortage of buzz. Seagate has been creating hype around HAMR technology since at least 2023. In 2024, we analyzed what HAMR exactly is with an expert, and Seagate itself announced that all necessary technology would be brought together under the name Mozaic 3+. Since then, HAMR drives have been distributed to data center customers, and mass production has started. Until now, however, general availability remained elusive.
Years of research preceded the introduction of the complex HAMR technology. Inside the drives, you’ll find, among other things, a specialized laser that can generate temperatures of 400 degrees and more in just 0.8 seconds, while the drives themselves consist of a new alloy of iron and platinum.
30 TB is by no means the end goal. The technology allows for 3.5-inch drives of 50 TB and more, although a concrete roadmap for such drives is currently lacking. With the general availability of this first generation of Mozaic 3+ drives, Seagate is certainly taking an important step towards the further development of the technology.