Seagate has announced global channel availability for its 28 and 30 TB Exos M datacenter and IronWolf Pro NAS disk drives, both conventionally recorded drives built with HAMR technology.
HAMR (heat-assisted magnetic recording) uses a laser to temporarily heat a high coercivity bit area, reducing its resistance to magnetic state change, and then cooling to achieve a higher areal density than the prior perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) tech, which operates at room temperature. HAMR drives can have shingled (partially overlapped) write tracks to improve their capacity at the expense of slower data rewrite performance.
Seagate ships Exos M drives with 32 and 36 TB capacity using SMR technology. There are no SMR IronWolf Pro drives.
Melyssa Banda, SVP of Edge Storage and Services at Seagate, stated: “Data gravity is increasingly pulling networks to the edge as nearly 150 countries adopt data sovereignty requirements, and AI workloads continue to expand. Datacenters – on-prem, private, and sovereign – are leveraging AI to unlock the value of their proprietary data. Our 30 TB drives are designed to support these rapidly growing trends, delivering the capacity, efficiency, and resilience needed to power the AI workloads.”
Exos M drives feature a 3.5-inch form factor, spin at 7,200 rpm, contain ten helium-filled platters, offer a 2.5 million-hour MTBF rating, a five-year limited warranty, and a 6 Gbps SATA interface. Seagate first announced the 30 TB Exos M in January last year. Following extended qualification by hyperscaler customers and the shipment of more than 1 million HAMR drives, it is now generally available.
IronWolf Pro drives are a variant of the Exos line and previously topped out at 24 TB. Now the line gets a lift to 28 and 30 TB capacity levels, courtesy of HAMR tech. They have an up to 550 TB/year workload rating, 2.5 million hours MTBF, and a five-year limited warranty.
Seagate is positioning the new Exos M drives as edge AI data storage devices, “empowering organizations to scale storage, optimize data placement, and support real-time edge analytics without compromising performance or sustainability.”
It added: “On-premises NAS systems are evolving into intelligent data hubs – supporting advanced workloads such as video analytics, image recognition, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and inferencing at the edge.” Seagate quotes recent market analysis projecting the global NAS market to grow at a CAGR of over 17 percent through 2034, driven by digital transformation and the rise of AI and big data analytics.
Seagate’s view is that HDDs complement SSDs in AI edge applications. It cites Ed Burns, Research Director, Hard Disk Drive and Storage Technologies at IDC, who said: “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.”
Seagate refers to HPE for an edge AI market growth number: “HPE forecasts the on-prem AI market will grow at a 90 percent CAGR, reaching $42 billion within three years.”
Until now, the AI edge market has not significantly boosted HDD sales.
Seagate’s disk competitors are presently playing catch-up. Western Digital’s Ultrastar HDDs top out at 26 TB with the CMR H590, and it uses SMR to take them to the 28 (HC680) and 32 (HC690) TB capacity levels. Its Red Pro NAS drive also has a maximum 26 TB capacity.
Toshiba’s shingled MA11 reaches the 28 TB level and it has a conventionally recorded MG11 drive with 24 TB.
Seagate’s disk product webpage provides more information about the new drives. The Exos M and IronWolf Pro 28 TB and 30 TB drives are available now through Seagate’s online store as well as authorized resellers and channel partners worldwide.
Exos M and IronWolf Pro 30 TB drives are priced at $599.99 with the equivalent 28 TB products set at $569.99. UK pricing is somewhat different. It’s £498.99 for the Exos M 30 TB and £478.99 for the Exos M 28 TB. But it is £559.99 for the IronWolf Pro 30TB and £526.99 for the IronWolf Pro 28 TB.
