Seagate announces new production of discs with smr technology

Seagate, one of the largest hard drive manufacturers, announces that this year it will begin production of hard drives based on its new Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR) technology, which will gradually replace traditional hard drives based on Perpendicular Magnetic Recording technology (PMR), technology that they claim has reached its physical limits in terms of storage density by area.

Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR) technology allows data tracks to be superimposed, allowing the construction of platters with a greater number of tracks, which will offer a density between 20 to 25% higher than that of current PMR-based hard drives; managing to offer hard drives with capacities up to 5TB.

Seagate also announces that next year (2014) it will commercialize its new hard drives based on Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR) technology, which thanks to its redesigned read / write laser head, will allow the manufacture of hard drives with capacities up to 6.4TB and even higher (up to 60TB) in the following years, as technology evolves.

We still do not know how these future hard drives made with the new technologies from Seagate will behave. It will be interesting to see these new hard drives in action.