• Toshiba maps path for hard disk drives from 24TB capacity to 55TB & beyond
• Storage giant targets 40TB drives as early as next year with new technologies
• Twelve platter design underpins Toshiba’s push toward higher capacities

Toshiba has outlined plans to push hard disk capacity far beyond today’s limits, with new slides showing a path to 40TB models and an eventual move toward 55TB and beyond.

PC Watch says the company detailed its roadmap at a recent symposium in Japan, describing advances in platter counts, recording technologies, and materials that will shape its next generation of data center drives.

There has been a steady rise in HDD storage sizes from 2017’s 10TB models to today’s 24TB capacity. Toshiba raised density by moving from CMR designs to its FC MAMR system, expanding platter counts from seven to nine and then to ten. It later increased density again with refinements to both CMR and MAMR, reaching 22TB and 24TB capacities in 2024.

MAMR and HAMR

In October, we reported that Toshiba had verified a 12 disk stacking design for nearline drives, marking a first for the storage industry.

This approach adds two platters to the familiar ten disk layout and replaces aluminum substrates with glass, allowing thinner disks, finer tolerances, and better durability.

Toshiba paired the design with MAMR and said it planned to reach 40TB capacities in 2027.

The new slides, one of which can be seen above, expand on that plan. Toshiba still aims to ship a 40TB class drive in 2027 using MAMR with 11 or 12 platters. A separate track, based on HAMR, is set to pass 40TB in 2026 with 11 platters.

MAMR and HAMR are two approaches to energy assisted magnetic recording that raise storage density beyond what conventional methods allow.

MAMR uses a microwave field to stabilize the writing process so data can be written to smaller magnetic regions without losing accuracy.

HAMR relies on a tiny, precisely controlled burst of heat from a semiconductor laser to momentarily lower the resistance of the media, enabling even finer magnetic patterns.

Both methods let manufacturers pack more data onto each platter, although HAMR generally offers higher long term density gains.

The roadmap shows targets of 45TB in 2028 and 55TB or more after 2029 as HAMR and 12 platter stacking mature, pointing toward what would be among the largest hard drives on the market.

The company has said it believes going to thirteen platters could be feasible within the same format.

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Wayne Williams is a freelancer writing news for TechRadar Pro. He has been writing about computers, technology, and the web for 30 years. In that time he wrote for most of the UK’s PC magazines, and launched, edited and published a number of them too.