Seagate has released two 30 TB hard drives based on its HAMR technology, pitching them as more energy efficient cheaper options for datacenter operators dealing with AI workloads.
The hard drive maker today confirmed global channel availability of Exos M 30 TB and IronWolf Pro 30 TB units.
The devices take Seagate to within the touching distance of rvials’ products: Western Digital launched HDDs with up to 32 TB in a single unit late last year, and Toshiba has demonstrated similar capacities. Seagate itself sampled a 36 TB drive in January, claiming it has a roadmap to 100 TB.
The two new models effectively top out Seagate’s respective ranges aimed at datacenter and NAS applications for now, and are built on its Mozaic 3+ tech that uses heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR). This uses a laser to heat where data is written, allowing data bits to be packed more densely.
Seagate is pushing AI as the reason why these ever larger drive capacities are required, forcing enterprises to up their on-prem storage. A similar trend is happening at the network edge to support inferencing closer to the user, the company says.
All this means, according to Seagate, that spinning hard drives still have a place in the datacenter where customers are mindful of costs when storing large volumes of data. This is a point Seagate was keen to drive home last year, in a presentation that sought to rebut flash vendor Pure Storage’s claims that flash-based SSD prices per terabyte would soon match those of hard disk drives.
Ed Burns, IDC Research Director for Hard Disk Drive and Storage Technologies, was happy to reinforce this point in a supportive quote.
“While not often associated with performance such as low latency, the highest capacity HDDs are a critical strategic asset in the AI development process, filling the need for mass capacity storage of the foundational data essential to building and improving the highest quality AI models in the market today and into the future.”
Only last year, Seagate and the other big disk drive makers blamed AI for causing a hike in prices, citing rising demand for high-capacity products. This had taken the manufacturers by surprise after they had cut production as much as 20 percent in the preceding, post-pandemic years.
Seagate listed UK prices for the two new drives, which it says are available now through its online store as well as resellers and distributors. The Exos M 30 TB is listed at £498.99 ($670), while the IronWolf Pro 30 TB is £559.99 ($753). ®