Toshiba unveils an 18TB hard drive, joining the race to 30TB

[Daniel Sims]

In brief: Toshiba and Showa Denko have recently unveiled their plans for advancing hard disc drive capacity. Along with Western Digital and Seagate, they are betting on different magnetic recording technologies in hopes of releasing 30TB drives in a few years.

Last week Toshiba unveiled its 18TB MN09 series NAS hard drive, which uses a new kind of Microwave-Assisted Magnetic Recording (MAMR) technology. The company’s Flux Control MAMR allows for greater density on each hard drive platter. It has a speed of 7200rpm, a 512MB buffer, and a transfer rate of 268 MiB/s.

Soon after the MN09’s unveiling, Showa Denko announced it’s working with Toshiba on hard drives using Microwave-Assisted Switching (MAS) MAMR to increase capacity further, eventually planning to reach 30TB. This technology uses a strong magnetic oscillation effect to record data on a much narrower track than earlier forms of MAMR.

Western Digital hailed MAMR in 2017, when it said it could have 40TB hard drives by 2025. Earlier this month though the company’s CEO spoke about eventually reaching 30TB with density-increasing technologies like ePMR, SRM, and HAMR. He didn’t mention MAMR at all. WD already used OptiNAND, a new metadata storage method, to release a 20TB drive last month.

Western Digital hailed MAMR in 2017 when it said it could have 40TB hard drives by 2025. Earlier this month, the company’s CEO spoke about eventually reaching 30TB with density-increasing technologies like ePMR, SRM, and HAMR. He didn’t mention MAMR at all. Western Digital already used OptiNAND, a new metadata storage method, to release a 20TB drive last month.

Seagate launched a 20TB drive last year using HAMR and wants to reach 30TB by the middle of this decade. Seagate even thinks it can hit 100TB by 2030.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/92653-toshiba-unveils-18tb-hard-drive-joining-race-30tb.html

 

[QuantumPhysics]

I wish they'd pour these resources into a 10TB SSD.

 

[Mr Majestyk]

I wish they'd pour these resources into a 10TB SSD.

Well it's not just the capacity it's the price per GB. I would love even an affordable 8GB sata 6 SSD with TLC and 256GB SLC cache.

 

[SG736F6]

I wonder what the recovery cost on a 30 TB drive would be if it failed? We had a 250 GB drive fail at work and a recovery company quoted us $3,500. They couldn't recover the drive so we didn't pay anything, but 30 TB? OUCH.

 

[VitalyT]

If it weren't for the global chip shortage, these would be dead in the water.

Global chip shortage is now the only factor holding back the SSD expansion.

 

[umbala]

If it weren't for the global chip shortage, these would be dead in the water.

Global chip shortage is now the only factor holding back the SSD expansion.

Complete and utter nonsense. SSDs and traditional drives are completely different technologies that get separate investments from these manufacturers. They know there's a massive data center demand for large capacity drives that couldn't be reached using SSDs or they would cost far too much.

 

[RudyBob]

I can't wait to lose 30TB of data all at once

 

[Bulllee]

Well it's not just the capacity it's the price per GB. I would love even an affordable 8GB sata 6 SSD with TLC and 256GB SLC cache.

Most of it gone.
You must know it.

 

[VitalyT]

Complete and utter nonsense. SSDs and traditional drives are completely different technologies that get separate investments from these manufacturers. They know there's a massive data center demand for large capacity drives that couldn't be reached using SSDs or they would cost far too much.

"They would cost too much" because of the ongoing chip shortage, you Muppet. It was the reason prices stopped collapsing about a year ago, or we would be seeing SSD prices drop another 50% in 1 year.

 

[s3thra]

I can't wait to lose 30TB of data all at once

It doesn't matter if you have 30MB, 30GB, or 30TB of data on a drive. If it's valuable, make sure it's backed up.

 

[Squid Surprise]

Western Digital hailed MAMR in 2017 when it said it could have 40TB hard drives by 2025. Earlier this month, the company’s CEO spoke about eventually reaching 30TB with density-increasing technologies like ePMR, SRM, and HAMR. He didn’t mention MAMR at all. Western Digital already used OptiNAND, a new metadata storage method, to release a 20TB drive last month.

You posted that paragraph twice....

 

[RudyBob]

It doesn't matter if you have 30MB, 30GB, or 30TB of data on a drive. If it's valuable, make sure it's backed up.

Really? Who would of thought?

 

[rrwards]

I wish they'd pour these resources into a 10TB SSD.

One day you'll acknowledge that larger than 10TB SSDs already exist and there's no reason to spend R&D money to develop something that's already made. You can hop on Amazon right now and buy a 15TB SSD if you want. Heck, Samsung unveiled a 30TB SSD back in 2018.

 

[QuantumPhysics]

One day you'll acknowledge that larger than 10TB SSDs already exist and there's no reason to spend R&D money to develop something that's already made. You can hop on Amazon right now and buy a 15TB SSD if you want. Heck, Samsung unveiled a 30TB SSD back in 2018.

One day you'll acknowledge that proliferation of larger capacity SSD causes reduced demand and thereby lowers the prices of SSD. I'm not concerned with a few very high-priced SSD. I'm interested in lower-cost, high-capacity SSD.

 

[DaveBG]

How is that significant? There are many other 18 and even 20 TB drives. I have several 18s myself.

 

[RaXelliX]

I wish they'd pour these resources into a 10TB SSD.

We already have 8TB SSD's. The problem is price. These still cost north of 1000 bucks.

 

[RaXelliX]

I wonder what the recovery cost on a 30 TB drive would be if it failed? We had a 250 GB drive fail at work and a recovery company quoted us $3,500. They couldn't recover the drive so we didn't pay anything, but 30 TB? OUCH.

Sounds like a ripoff. 3500 for what is likely a single platter drive. And they could not even recover it lol.
Im pretty sure that it's not the overall size but rather the complexity of the drive that determines the price. Unless someone took a hammer to it a guy in hes garage could problably recover old single platter drives (with appropriate tools ofcourse). But recovering a 9 or soon 10 platter helium filled drive is likely something only a few companies in the work are capable of doing.

 

[RaXelliX]

I can't wait to lose 30TB of data all at once

Lol every time a new capacity record is reached someone who never plans buying it or even has that much valuable data comes and comments what it would be like to lose that. As if backups are not a thing.

 

[RaXelliX]

One day you'll acknowledge that larger than 10TB SSDs already exist and there's no reason to spend R&D money to develop something that's already made. You can hop on Amazon right now and buy a 15TB SSD if you want. Heck, Samsung unveiled a 30TB SSD back in 2018.

There are even 100TB enterprise SSD's tho those are 3,5" in size.

 

[RaXelliX]

How is that significant? There are many other 18 and even 20 TB drives. I have several 18s myself.

It's the new capacity record. And currently there is one model from WD and Toshiba and a few from Seagate. I would not call that many.