Seagate Introduces Hard Drive Capacities of Up to 36TB with HAMR-Based Mozaic 3+ Technology Platform

Seagate has announced the launch of its Exos M hard drives, offering industry-leading storage capacities of up to 36 terabytes (TB). Leveraging the company’s Mozaic 3+ platform and breakthrough heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) technology, the new drives are designed to meet the growing demand for scalable, efficient, and sustainable data storage solutions, particularly in data centers.

Advancements in Mozaic 3+ Technology and HAMR Innovation

Seagate’s Exos M hard drives mark a significant advancement in storage technology. The Mozaic 3+ platform, featuring HAMR, enables these drives to achieve areal densities of 3.6TB per platter, a capability unique to Seagate. The company has successfully demonstrated capacities exceeding 6TB per platter in its test labs, paving the way for future storage innovations.

The drives provide numerous advantages for data center operators, including a 300% increase in storage capacity within the same footprint, a 25% reduction in cost per terabyte, and a 60% decrease in power consumption per terabyte compared to traditional drives. This makes them an attractive option for large-scale deployments, especially for applications involving artificial intelligence (AI) and big data analytics.

Adoption by Cloud Service Providers

Seagate is ramping up volume shipments of the Exos M drives with capacities up to 32TB to leading cloud service providers and is also sampling drives with capacities of up to 36TB. Dell Technologies is among the first to adopt the new technology for its high-density storage systems. Travis Vigil, Senior Vice President of ISG Product Management at Dell, noted, “As customers build out their AI factories, they need cost-efficient, scalable and flexible storage engineered to reliably handle the most demanding AI workloads. Dell PowerScale with Seagate’s HAMR-enabled Mozaic 3+ technology plays a crucial role in supporting AI use cases like retrieval augmented generation (RAG), inferencing and agentic workflows.”

Seagate CEO Dave Mosley highlighted the growing demand for long-term data retention driven by cloud expansion and AI adoption. “Unprecedented levels of data creation demand long-term data retention and access to ensure trustworthy data-driven outcomes,” Mosley said. “From capturing training checkpoints to archiving source-data sets, the more data organizations retain, the more they can validate that their applications are acting as they expect them to – and adjust course as needed.”

Mosley added, “Seagate continues to lead in areal density, sampling drives on the Exos M platform of up to 36TB today. As the world’s leading producer of exabytes, and the only manufacturer capable of producing 3.6TB per platter hard drives at scale, Seagate is laser-focused on delivering the storage scale required for the applications of the future.”

Key Specifications

• Capacities: 30TB, 32TB, and 36TB
• Areal Density: 3.6TB per platter, scalable up to 10TB per platter in the future
• Form Factor: Industry-standard 3.5-inch
• Power Efficiency: 3× the power efficiency per terabyte compared to conventional drives
• Reliability: Enterprise-class durability for hyperscale cloud service providers
• Sustainability: Built with renewable energy and recycled materials, reducing environmental impact
• Cooling: Engineered for optimal heat dissipation without increasing cooling requirements
• Security: Includes Seagate Secure for robust data protection