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posted by martyb on Friday March 15 2019, @09:46AM   Printer-friendly
from the put-the-HAMR-down dept.

Toshiba's HDD Tech Roadmap: A Mix of SMR, MAMR, TDMR, and HAMR

In an interview published this week with Blocks & Files, Toshiba outlined the company will be relying on a mix of hard drive technologies in order to keep increasing hard drive capacities. Along with current-generation two-dimensional magnetic recording (TDMR) and shingled magnetic recording (SMR) technologies, the company will also be tapping both microwave assisted magnetic recording (MAMR) as well as heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) for future drives. Already gearing up to ship its first 16 TB TDMR drives, Toshiba's short-term development plans call for it to adopt SMR as well as MAMR. Meanwhile in the longer-term, HAMR will be introduced for further capacity increases.

[...] By adopting MAMR for their 2019 – 2020 nearline HDDs Toshiba and Western Digital can continue using HDD media that is similar to platters used today. By contrast, Seagate is set to skip MAMR and use HAMR along with brand new disks instead.

Previously: Toshiba Will Adopt Western Digital's Microwave-Assisted Magnetic Recording Approach for Hard Drives
"Nobody" Wants SSDs with Over 16 TB of Storage?


Original Submission

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Toshiba Will Adopt Western Digital's Microwave-Assisted Magnetic Recording Approach for Hard Drives 6 comments

Toshiba plans to boost its hard drive capacities by using Microwave-Assisted Magnetic Recording rather than Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording. The company could use the technology to produce an ~18 terabyte hard drive:

Toshiba, like Western Digital, is going to use Microwave-Assisted Magnetic Recording (MAMR) to escape the inability of current PMR tech to go beyond 15-16TB disk drive capacity. [...] Seagate has chosen to [increase capacities] using heat (Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording or HAMR). Proponents of the MAMR approach say HAMR stresses the disk surface and read:write heads rendering the disk unreliable in the long-term. Seagate disputes this and has demonstrated long life HAMR read:write heads.

Western Digital has chosen MAMR for its future technology and now we know Toshiba is doing the same.

[...] MAMR uses 20 - 40GHZ frequencies and the [Spin Torque Oscillator (STO)] bombards a bit area with a circular AC microwave field, lowering its coercivity and enabling the bit value to be written (magnetic polarity changed as desired.)

It is reckoned that MAMR could lead to 4Tbit/in2 areal densities, beyond the 700 to 1,000Gbit/in2 used currently, and leading to 40TB drives.

Related: Western Digital to Use Microwave Assisted Magnetic Recording to Produce 40 TB HDDs by 2025
Seagate to Stay the Course With HAMR HDDs, Plans 20 TB by 2020, ~50 TB Before 2025
Seagate Plans 36 TB HAMR HDDs by 2022, 48 TB by 2024
Seagate Starts to Test 16 TB HAMR (Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording) Hard Drives


Original Submission

Toshiba Announces 16 TB and 18 TB Microwave-Assisted Magnetic Recording (MAMR) Hard Drives 35 comments

Toshiba Unveils World's First FC-MAMR HDD: 18 TB, Helium Filled

Toshiba this week announced the industry's first hard drive featuring flux-control microwave-assisted magnetic recording (FC-MAMR) technology. The new MG09-series HDDs are designed primarily for nearline and enterprise applications, they offer an 18 TB capacity along with an ultra-low idle power consumption.

The Toshiba MG09-series 3.5-inch 18 TB HDD are based on the company's 3rd generation nine-platter helium sealed platform that features 18 heads with a microwave-emitting component which changes magnetic coercivity of the platters before writing data. The HD disks are made by Showa Denko K.K. (SDK), a long-time partner of Toshiba. Each aluminum platter is about 0.635 mm thick, it features an areal density of around 1.5 Tb/inch2 and can store up to 2 TB of data. The MG09 family also includes a 16 TB model which presumably features a lower number of platters (based on the same performance rating).

Previously: Toshiba Will Adopt Western Digital's Microwave-Assisted Magnetic Recording Approach for Hard Drives
Toshiba Roadmap Includes Both MAMR and HAMR Hard Drives, as Well as TDMR and Shingles
Western Digital Releases New 18TB, 20TB EAMR Drives


Original Submission

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