Browse Seagate's repertoire of business hard drives and you'll see some of the best HDDs you can buy, but one that's not on the lists and almost impossible to get your hands on is the Exos X26z.
This 3.5-inch 25TB business hard drive is unlike any other because it is a host-managed HM-SMR (shingled Magnetic Recording) unit and does not run on Windows or MacOS – the two most popular desktop operating systems. Instead, you need a Linux distribution to successfully integrate into your IT infrastructure.
It's also not available through regular channels and is made exclusively for Seagate's largest enterprise customer. These drives are really only useful for the largest hyperscalers, as they can increase capacity per slot by 25% over conventional hard drives. This is according to Storage overviewwho was able to acquire one of these mercury units through eBay.
How does Seagate's largest hard drive perform?
Storage Review compared Seagate's 25TB hard drive, the largest currently available, against the company's 20TB IonWolf Pro device in several benchmarks.
The
On Random 4K Read, the X26z achieved 2,121 IOPS, compared to 233 IOPS in the IronWolf Pro. But for Random 4K Writes, the Exos hard drive unfortunately failed after 2 IOPS, while the IronWolf Pro achieved 313 IOPS. Nevertheless, the numbers for 4K readings are impressive.
But despite being an impressive option for data center customers, these hard drives are almost not worth trying if you don't have immediate access, as a new technology – Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR) – is just around the corner.
Both Seagate and Western Digital are working on building HDDs larger than 30TB using this expected technology launched in 2024. Built for enterprises, they can outpace the largest hard drives on the market today – and this is just the beginning, construction is underway hard drives that can eventually reach 100TB.