A recent study published in Acta Materialia showcased a breakthrough in hard disk drive (HDD) technology. Collaborating researchers from Seagate, NIMS, and Tohoku University introduced a novel approach called two-layer heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR). This innovative method has the potential to achieve an areal density of up to 4Tbpsi (terabits per square inch), significantly surpassing current HDD capabilities.
While existing HAMR-based products by Seagate can record at 1.5Tbpsi, enabling HDDs with capacities exceeding 30TB, the new dual-layer recording technique opens the door to even higher storage capacities. By extrapolating the potential of this technology, future HDDs could offer storage capacities exceeding 120TB, a substantial leap in data storage capabilities.
