Key Points
- Toshiba has a roadmap to produce 40TB hard drives by 2027 and 55TB+ drives after 2029.
- The company will increase capacity by stacking up to 12 platters in a single drive. This will be enabled by a switch to thinner, more durable glass platters.
- Toshiba will use advanced recording technologies called MAMR (microwaves) and HAMR (lasers).
- HAMR technology is expected to deliver the highest storage densities in the long run.
Toshiba has laid out an ambitious plan to dramatically increase the storage capacity of its hard drives, with a roadmap that leads to massive 40TB models by 2027 and even larger 55TB drives in the years to follow.
The company detailed its plans at a recent symposium, outlining the key technological advances that will enable these large-scale storage capacities. Toshiba has steadily increased the capacity of its hard drives over the years, moving from 10TB models in 2017 to today’s 24TB drives.
The next big leap will come from a combination of new technologies. A key innovation is a new design that stacks 12 platters (the spinning disks inside a hard drive) into a single drive, up from the current standard of ten. To do this, Toshiba is switching from aluminum to thinner, more durable glass platters.
Toshiba is also using two different advanced recording technologies to pack more data onto each platter: MAMR and HAMR. Both use energy—either microwaves (MAMR) or a tiny laser (HAMR)—to write data onto smaller and smaller magnetic regions.
While both are effective, HAMR is expected to offer higher storage densities in the long term.
According to the new roadmap, Toshiba expects to use both technologies to push past the 40TB mark. After that, the company plans to focus on HAMR and 12-platter designs to reach 45TB in 2028 and an incredible 55TB or more after 2029.
