HAMR technology means 100TB HDDs by 2025

Almost all forms of technology have a limit, an endpoint where they couldn’t possibly perform any better or it becomes too costly and time consuming to garner more performance.

There is another endgame for many a technology, obsolescence – when a technology is replaced by a largely superior technology.

For many of us, hard disk drives are slowly being rendered moot by solid-state drives. Heck, even traditional NAND flash SSDs are looking a little obsolete with Intel’s recent unveiling of 3D Xpoint-powered Optane SSDs.

3D-Xpoint-Memory-at-Optane-Technology-Unveiling

Intel and Micron’s all-new 3D Xpoint memory.

The thing is, thanks to Seagate’s heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) technology, HDDs are about to fight back.

If you thought our recent story about SanDisk’s plans to produce 6TB and 8TB SSDs in the next year or so is impressive, wait until you get a load of what Seagate is working on.

A report by Heise.de (thanks KitGuru) states that HAMR technology may eventually allow HDDs with capacities of 100TB plus by 2025.

Technically, it will take HAMR as well as a number of other technologies the Advanced Storage Technology Consortium (ASTC) plans to introduce over the next 10 years, HAMR being one of them – followed up by BPMR and, ultimately, HDMR.

ASTC magnetic storage technology roadmap

So what is HAMR exactly? Well without getting too technical, and mostly because Seagate has yet to announce the exact inner-workings of the technology, HAMR technology refers to the heads within HDDs and their ability to heat up magnetic media before writing an d reading data.

The goal is to heat said media to 450°C using a 810nm wavelength laser and 20mW of power.

By doing so, it alters the magnetic properties of the material, so as to effectively allow considerably higher areal density without the need for more powerful magnetic fields – something that is becoming increasingly difficult to do.

As the material is heated, the same magnetic field currently produced by HDDs will suffice to read bits of information from increasingly smaller pits – the pits being the areas of a surface where individual bits are stored.

Without heating up the material, it’s really rather difficult to store data on smaller pits. That’s why more and more surface layers are being introduced as a way of increasing hard drive capacity.

Suffice it to say, HAMR technology is the first point in an evolution of magnetic media storage devices. We can’t wait to buy our first 100TB hard drive.

For the moment, however, as a way of testing the technology and its production, Seagate will be releasing HAMR HDDs with around the same capacity as traditional hard drives.

So don’t hold your breath. You won’t be seeing HAMR HDDs at your local retailer anytime soon.