Kawasaki,
Japan－Toshiba Electronic Devices & Storage Corporation (Toshiba)
has successfully achieved storage capacities of over 30TB[1]
with two next-generation large capacity recording technologies for hard
disk drives (HDDs): Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR) and
Microwave Assisted Magnetic Recording (MAMR). The demonstration drives
represent a major milestone in the advance toward commercial products
based on each of these emerging recording formats.
HAMR, one of the two technologies that are driving forward
next-generation high-capacity data recording, boosts magnetic recording
capabilities by locally heating the disk with near-field light. Toshiba
achieved 32TB on 10 disks and adoption of Shingled Magnetic Recording
(SMR) technology. Toshiba plans to start shipping test sample[2] HDDs with HAMR technology in 2025.
The other technology is MAMR, which uses microwaves to enhance magnetic recording capabilities. Toshiba was the first[3]
to demonstrate its effectiveness and started mass production of
first-generation drives in 2021. Toshiba achieved 31TB by stacking 11
disks, utilizing SMR technology, and improving signal processing.
These new achievements were made possible through years of close
collaborative work with Resonac Corporation, a HDD media manufacturer,
and TDK Corporation, a HDD head manufacturer. Toshiba and its working
partners are committed to continue developing both HAMR and MAMR
technologies in order to provide higher capacity HDDs to meet the
growing storage demand of the cloud and datacenters.
A technical lecture detailing the demonstration will be presented at
the IDEMA Symposium scheduled for May 16. For more details, visit the
IDEMA website at IDEMA Japan (Japanese only)