Toshiba has outlined its hard disk drive roadmap for the next five years. In addition to increasing the number of platters per drive, the company hopes to rapidly increase the capacity of its HDDs by adopting next-generation recording technologies.
The company’s closest plan means that it will deliver a 26TB hard drive by the end of fiscal year 2022, 14 months from now. Meanwhile, Toshiba 40TB HDD announcement is planned to be made by 2027.
Toshiba shared roadmap for 40TB HDD
There are two ways to increase the capacity of the hard drive: using platters with higher areal recording density and/or installing more platters on a HDD. Traditionally, hard drive manufacturers use both methods. Currently, Toshiba’s highest capacity HDDs are 18TB products with nine aluminum plates using FC-MAMR technology.
At the end of fiscal year 2022, which ends on March 31, 2023 (within the next 14 months), Toshiba will switch to MAS-MAMR technology and introduce its 10-platter 26 TB HDD. The company will continue its aggressive pacing through the end of fiscal year 2024, which ends March 31, 2025, and plans to roll out a 30TB drive with 11 platters by that date.
But starting from 30/35 TB Toshiba is considering switching to HAMR technology, which is expected to provide long-term evolution for HDDs. Toshiba says it will allow HAMR to offer a hard drive with a capacity of over 40TB in fiscal year 2027 or about five years from now.
Toshiba’s positioning of high-capacity HDDs based on magnetic recording technology seems to be a remarkable advance. However, it’s interesting to see if and when technologies like MAS-MAMR and/or HAMR will be used for consumer-grade HDDs.
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