Thursday, July 30th 2026
Seagate Roadmap Targets 50 TB HAMR Hard Drives in 2027
This Tuesday, Seagate presented its Q4 fiscal 2026 earnings report and during the presentation it offered some updated storage roadmap details. The company says that new 50 TB HAMR hard drives are planned for customer validation in 2027. The current Mozaic 4+ platform supports drives up to 44 TB and is built around Seagate's Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording Technology (HAMR). By the end of 2026, the company expects that Mozaic 4+ models will account for 50% of its HAMR exabytes shipped to customers. "We expect to achieve our next ramp milestone by exiting calendar 2026 with 50% of our HAMR exabytes on our Mozaic 4 platform," CEO, Dave Mosley said. CFO Gianluca Romano confirmed the company is on track to exceed 5 TB per platter and since Seagate flagship-tier HDDs use ten platters, we will have 50 TB per drive. The next step is Mozaic 5+, the third generation of the platform, which will enable that +5 TB per platter density. As mentioned, first Mozaic 5+ drives are expected to ship to customers for qualification later in 2027, after which they go through OEM and data center validation before any broader availability.
Seagate also has a lab demonstration target of 10 TB per platter around 2028, which would eventually bring drives close to the 100 TB range. Last year, Seagate disclosed that it successfully produced a prototype platter capable of storing roughly 6.9 TB of data and is trying to reach 8 TB per platter. The broader capacity roadmap runs from 40-44 TB in the 2027/2028 window, scaling to 50-60 TB around 2030, and pushing past 80 TB in the 2031/2032 timeframe. Worth keeping in mind what "customers" means in this context, these drives first go to Big Tech, enterprises and AI companies, not retail. Consumer availability typically follows years later, if at all.
Source:
TechSpot
Seagate also has a lab demonstration target of 10 TB per platter around 2028, which would eventually bring drives close to the 100 TB range. Last year, Seagate disclosed that it successfully produced a prototype platter capable of storing roughly 6.9 TB of data and is trying to reach 8 TB per platter. The broader capacity roadmap runs from 40-44 TB in the 2027/2028 window, scaling to 50-60 TB around 2030, and pushing past 80 TB in the 2031/2032 timeframe. Worth keeping in mind what "customers" means in this context, these drives first go to Big Tech, enterprises and AI companies, not retail. Consumer availability typically follows years later, if at all.
17 Comments on Seagate Roadmap Targets 50 TB HAMR Hard Drives in 2027
Thinking like a Backblaze 60 HDD storage pod. If your HDD takes up two slots but you can say fit 4 additional platters in that same space. That POD would have 120 additional platters. Would be like adding 10 standard hard drives.
they could bring back 5 1/4" HDs, but, most cases only expect 3.5"/2.5", so you would have the same problem
it's pretty crazy how much they are cramming into the platters, I wonder how often they need to mark bad sectors on these things?
Another problem is cost, you would only use these in very large data-centers as redundancy is going to suck.
A massive 10 megabytes using a 5.25-inch wide by 3.25-inch tall by 8-inch deep form factor!!! Then again, your OS and a good amount of software would fit comfortably in those 10 megabytes, and it was way faster than booting from a floppy.
How long is it going to take to scrub one of these or resilver even a small array?
10 years later just will touch a half of 100TB HDDs.
— HDD Cartel —
Yes, it will be incompatible with all the existing 3,5" HDD racks. So what? Only datacenters and big ass companies will buy those in the 1st couple of years, because of course it will be hell expensive. By the time price reduced, the new form factor racks, and chassis will be widespread even in the ordinary user market as well.
people didn't like 10K & 15K RPM, because way too much noise and heat, the other option was to have dual actuators, which were built, and I think they were the world's fastest at 524MB/s, but, unless you are Enterprise, forget about getting them, in fact, I don't think they make them anymore
Are they going to at least be as fast as the cheapest SATA SSD out there?