- Western Digital plans to produce 100 TB+ HDDs within a decade
- It will do this using Hamr and HDMR Heat Assisted Technologies
- The company also examines long -term storage such as ceramics and DNA
Western Digital and SanDisk has begun the process of dividing into separate companies, with the former focused on HDD and platform development and the latter now all-in on flash products. Both companies recently held investor days, and while Sandisk teased a 1PB SSD and a flash replacement for HBM at its event, WD’s focus was on how it intends to supercharge hard disk capacity within a decade.
The company’s roadmap for the future of HDD technology shows a clear progression from energy-assisted perpendicular magnetic uptake (EPMR) to heat-assisted magnetic uptake (Hamr) and ultimately for heat prick Magnetic uptake (HDMR), which targets over 100 TB capabilities.
By 2026, Western Digital says its HDD capacity will reach 36TB-44TB thanks to Hamr technology using laser heating to temporarily reduce the compulsion of the disk. This allows for less magnetic grain, improving data stability and density and at the same time reducing the interference, allowing HDDs to store more data per day. Fad with prolonged reliability.
Enter HDMR technology
Western Digital is not the only drive manufacturer bank at Hamr to supercharge the capacity of hard drives.
Its great rival Seagate recently debuted a 36TB drive, while it revealed a 60TB model comes, and in especially bad news for WD, it also launched a bid to acquire Hamr -Specialist Intevac, whose sputtering machines are spent on over 65% of the world Hard Disker. Although Seagate is Intevac’s most important customer, WD also uses the company’s technique.
In the 2030s, Western Digital expects Hamr to be replaced by HDMR (also known as BIT pattern recording), which will lead to 100 TB+ HDD capacities. The technique, which is reported to be quite expensive, uses nano-pattern magnetic media with discreet magnetic “dots” to increase the location of data placement, reduce noise and improve area density.
Western Digital not only focuses on traditional hard drives, it also explores new growth opportunities. In AI Compute, the company explores advanced calculation models such as Boltzmann and Ising, as well as Neuromorf Computing, which can enable more effective, brain-like treatment architectures for AI workloads.
The company also examines long-term DNA and ceramic storage, two new technologies that have the potential to offer extremely durable and high density data preservation for archive needs. In the Medtech sector, the company is considering developing magnetic biosensors and nanopore technology, which can have significant uses in biomedical diagnostics and personal medicine.
