Seagate hit full speed ahead in January 2024 when it launched the world’s first 30TB hard drive (and the largest hard drive ever produced), the Exos X Mosaic 3+with the promise of much more to come, including a 50TB hard drive (more on that later).
Many of you may not know it, but it won’t be Seagate’s first storage device over 50TB (ed: Check out our list of the best hard drives straight away).
In August 2016, the storage company demonstrated one 60TB SSD at the Flash Memory Summit, yes, that was almost eight years ago, a year that could easily have found a place on our list best SSD guide). The unnamed drive had a 3.5-inch form factor, the same as hard drives, a SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) interface and featured Micron’s ultra-dense NAND technology, setting a then-new low in energy efficiency ( 4TB per watt). or 15 W to power the entire device).
Everyone go
Things have been quiet at Seagate since then, and for the first time ever I was able to get an official statement from the company about what could have been a game changer at the time.
A Seagate spokesperson told me, “As time and constraints prevail, all companies must make decisions about their priorities. For example, we saw many roadmap reprioritizations during the last economic downturn. It made sense for us to reevaluate our priorities, because The environment at the time was very dynamic, including some industry consolidation that forced reevaluations across the board. That’s why we focused on where we have our biggest advantage. Our identity has always been a leader in hard drive storage technology Keep in mind that SSD Because storage is still more expensive than hard drives by a ratio of approximately 5:1 per TB, our decision to focus on innovation in areal density for hard drives makes business sense for us.”
So there you go: it all came down to playing to your strengths rather than chasing technology where you don’t have a unique selling point (Seagate used Micron NAND back then). Western Digital’s acquisition of Sandisk – announced in October 2015, just ten months earlier – may have been the catalyst for that decision. Sandisk brought NAND manufacturing capabilities to Western Digital, Seagate’s HDD archrival, allowing vertical integration and economies of scale that Seagate couldn’t match.
Vertical integration is key here. During a conversation I had with BS Teh, the company’s Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer prior to the launch of the Exos lead in Seagate’s capacity race. . The company does not use Resonac, the world leader in hard drives, but instead relies on its own homegrown technology.
That could explain why Seagate delayed the launch of its 50TB hard drive to a 24-month period (2027 to 2028), instead of the original schedule (2026). What comes next? Well, Seagate’s BS Teh has confirmed that hard drive platters with capacities greater than 5TB will be coming later, which could mean 6TB (or 60TB HDD, using 10 platters) by 2029. That would require a huge improvement in the actual area. density, as measured in Tb per square inch; the current record holder is Seagate’s own 30TB drive at 1,742Tb/si.