After more than two decades of development, Seagate is finally preparing to launch its first high-capacity hard drive utilizing heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) technology. The Exos M hard drive, featuring Seagate's Mozaic 3 Plus HAMR platform, is expected to offer up to 32TB of storage capacity, making it an attractive solution for enterprise applications, such as powering AI systems.

The HAMR technology enables larger hard drive capacities by reducing the size of data bits and increasing their proximity on each disk. This is achieved through a laser diode attached to the drive's recording heads, which heats small areas of the disk to write data. According to Seagate, the HAMR laser has no impact on drive temperature, stability, or reliability.

The Exos M hard drive boasts a 3TB per platter density, making it an ideal choice for mass capacity markets, including cloud service providers. In fact, Seagate has already completed qualification testing with several customers, including a leading cloud service provider, and is set to start shipping the HAMR-based hard drive in the coming weeks.

While Seagate is not the only company working on high-capacity hard drives, its HAMR technology is a significant development in the storage industry. Western Digital, for instance, launched a 32TB hard drive using energy-assisted perpendicular magnetic recording (ePMR) in October, while Toshiba has demonstrated high-capacity hard drives with HAMR and microwave-assisted magnetic recording (MAMR). However, Seagate's HAMR technology is poised to offer a unique combination of capacity and reliability.

The launch of Seagate's Exos M hard drive is expected to have significant implications for the enterprise storage market, particularly in the areas of AI, cloud computing, and data analytics. With the increasing demand for high-capacity storage solutions, Seagate's HAMR technology is well-positioned to meet the needs of businesses and organizations requiring massive data storage.

While a specific release date for the Exos M hard drive has not been announced, the product page on Seagate's website suggests that a launch is imminent. As the company prepares to bring its HAMR technology to market, the storage industry is likely to experience a significant shift towards higher-capacity, more reliable storage solutions.

In conclusion, Seagate's upcoming launch of its 32TB HAMR hard drive marks a significant milestone in the development of high-capacity storage technology. With its Mozaic 3 Plus HAMR platform, Seagate is poised to revolutionize the enterprise storage market, offering businesses and organizations a powerful solution for their growing data storage needs.