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Tom’s Hardware
Tom’s Hardware
Technology
Anton Shilov

Western Digital to unveil 44TB HAMR HDDs in 2026, 100TB in 2030

Western Digital's plans.

Western Digital this week outlined its future hard disk drive technology roadmap and revealed plans to adopt heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) for its HDDs beginning in late 2026. HAMR will enable the company to build 80TB–100TB HDDs by 2030. 

Western Digital's first HAMR-based HDDs will be introduced sometime in 2026, with a 36TB capacity for conventional magnetic recording (CMR) and a 44TB capacity for shingled UltraSMR recording. The company expects these drives to be qualified by its customers among cloud data center providers by late 2026, which is when Western Digital will begin its volume production. The company plans to commence volume shipments of its HAMR drives in the first half of 2027. 

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