Data storage brand and maker Seagate recently announced that it is on track to start qualification of its new 50TB-capacity HDDs by late 2027. Upon passing qualification, the company expect to be able to ship out said HDDs the following year.
Seagate made the announcement during one of its annual earnings calls with financial analysts and investors. “Mozaic 5, our 5+ terabyte per disk platform, remains on track for qualification shipments in late calendar 2027,” Dave Mosley, chief executive officer of Seagate, said.
50TB Is…A Lot Of Storage
For context and as per Tom’s Hardware’s explanation: “Mozaic 5 is the company’s 3rd generation platform for commercial hard drives based on Seagate’s heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) technology that succeeds Mozaic 3 and Mozaic 4. The Mozaic 5 platform enables the company to build platters with over 5TB capacity and consequently build 10-platter HDDs with over 50TB capacity featuring conventional magnetic recording (CMR) for clients seeking performance and versatility or shingled magnetic recording (SMR) for clients that need maximum capacity to maximise their storage density.”
Now, as you can already imagine, Seagate’s 50TB HDDs isn’t for the general consumer or masses. At least, not during its initial availability. Its target market are companies with hyperscale infrastructure and AI datacentres. “Based on the long-term supply agreements in place today, the vast majority of our nearline exabytes are now allocated into calendar 2028,” Mosley said. “[…] As our strategic relationships deepen, many are actively seeking to extend planning horizons through 2029 and beyond, which we believe reflects growing confidence in their own long-term infrastructure needs.”
To provide some explanation, Seagate’s 50TB drives will be based on the aforementioned Mozaic platform, which is its HAMR technology. For the company, its HAMR-based products account for 40% of exabyte shares, with that number expected to reach 70% by early July 2027.
(Source: Seagate via Tom’s Hardware)
