Seagate 8 TB HDDs Widely Available Next Quarter, Shipping Now
Seagate announced that it is shipping 8 TB hard drives to its key customers, and that's it. Period.
About a month ago we saw a report indicating that Seagate was shipping enterprise-class 8 TB hard drives to key customers for testing. Since then we haven't heard much, but today we received an official announcement from Seagate, which in short stated that the company is now shipping the 8 TB drives. Since there is no mention of testing, we can only assume that this is finished and that Seagate is rolling the drives out to customers as they roll off the production line.
These drives come in the standard 3.5" form factor and have SATA3 (6 Gb/s) interfaces. It remains unknown exactly how many platters are used in the drives. Aside from the capacity, physical size, and that it has a SATA3 interface, we weren't told more.
The highest platter count we've seen for a standard size 3.5" hard drive is seven platters, and the highest platter density we've seen lies around 1.2 TB per platter, which together would make the 8 TB capacity. Seagate didn't share any information about this though, so the best we're able to do is make assumptions.
In an attempt to get more information about the hard drives, we've reached out to Seagate, but the company told us that it wasn't able (or willing, as the case may be) to share any details beyond what's in the press release.
Fortunately, the press release did tell us that the drives would be widely available 'next quarter.' At that rate, it won't be reasonable to expect consumer-oriented 8 TB drives anytime this year, especially considering that Western Digital only just rolled out its 6 TB WD Green and WD Red consumer oriented drives.
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At least they aren't jumping at the bullshift bandwagon like some "write early-write much" sites.
It's not about being slower of faster, some are a day head so they get to publish the article first. If you're on the other side of the globe, right now you would still be in bed and going on to 8/27. If your on the Western side where the U.S. is, you'll probably be still at work and the day is 8/26.
Same article from Tom's UK
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/seagate-8tb-hard-drive-hdd,news-48687.html
My SFF Server would welcome a pair of these.
Of course, "What took them so long?" and "Why isn't it 2Tb per side?" are some of my next questions. With a baker's dozen of the 2Tb-per-side (16Tb total), I could finally settle down to a real media center.
with 16tb drives, it only takes 64 drives to have a petabyte raid 6.
64 drives ain't that many, relatively speaking.
Of course, that rebuild time might be a tad lengthy... any idea if Rebuilds will be using Stone Tablet-and-Chisel speeds still?
(I once remember installing some 6-diskette software package... someone brought me lunch. "Still going?" Yes.
Ah, the joys of Netware 2.2 and 3. The good ol' days might be back!
Holy ArcNet, Batman!
ELBERT, yes, "late in capacity change". And also prices aren't so terrific, either. Back before the Thailand Floods (cough cough), we bought a stack of Hitachi 3Tb 7200s for $139 retail. They've only hit that price recently, and only passing under that mark 'on sale specials'.
I think this high-price for drives AND memory - and heck, notebooks too - are what's stifled the custom sales market. The first generation of i5 notebooks ("4Gb RAM, 500Gb HDD") were on sales specials in the $470 range.
That's what they are now, too. Occasionally, we'll see a low-end name brand (Gateway, cough cough) that will be closer to $400, or refurbs for somewhat less. But these should have followed the market trend of dropping by a $100 or more by this time.
It's not that these are truly "unaffordably high prices" - it's just that they haven't dropped as much, as fast, and customers are saying, "Why spend the same amount when I'm getting minor or perhaps not even noticeably faster performance? And where's the new killer apps? I'm still doing exactly the same productive work I was in 2003. Why get a new computer at all?"
The maintenance of these high prices AND relatively slow increases in services or performance improvements gives consumers the idea: "Sure - stick with XP... why not? Stick with my 2010 notebook - why not?"
Cut the massive HDDs into the $100 range... 16Gb RAM into the $50-80 range... (it IS great to see 1Tb drives in the $50-60 range. Honestly, they can't get much lower.)