Seagate Levels Up: 8 TB On The Horizon

Seagate already ships 8 TB hard disk drives using shingle magnetic recording (SMR) technology. Today, the company announced three new 8 TB models that do not overlap tracks to store massive amounts of data.

Of the three new models, only one crosses over to the SMB market. Paul Alcorn chimed in on the new Enterprise Capacity 3.5" and Kinetic HDD today on Tom's IT Pro. The three new products join the Archive HDD with 8 TB of capacity, but get there without SMR.

The Seagate Enterprise NAS model spans the SMB and enterprise markets, so we'll cover it here today. eNAS uses 7,200 RPM platters, a step up from the 5,900 RPM Seagate NAS HDD. The enterprise model supports NAS systems from one to 16 drive bays and uses less power than true nearline hard drives that also cost significantly more.

Power users often turn to the higher-rated model for increased reliability and performance in NAS appliances. The Enterprise NAS product line ships with a five-year warranty, and Seagate offers an optional five-year data recovery service that users can purchase for increased peace of mind.

The new 8 TB Enterprise NAS HDD now doubles the capacity of the NAS HDD. The NAS HDD is made for SMB and home users, filling the one to eight bay NAS appliances needs. We suspect Seagate will quickly ramp up NAS HDD capacity, but nothing has come from the company officially yet.

To achieve the new 8 TB capacity size, Seagate used six 1.33 TB platters. More importantly, the company was able to do so without using exotic gasses that reduce drag inside the platter chamber. Industry rival HGST achieved the first 8 TB HDD in 2014, but the Ultrastar He8 required the use of helium to reduce drag, which leads to lower power consumption and temperatures. The Ultrastar He8 8 TB currently costs $520 in the open market. We suspect the Seagate Enterprise NAS 8 TB will sell for less, but it did not release MSRP information today.

The true competitor to Seagate's enterprise NAS HDD is Western Digital's Red Pro. Last week, WD announced a new Red Pro in 6 TB capacity, the largest size currently available from the company. The number of hard disk drive companies may have condensed over the years from acquisitions, but the new capacity race is still keeping things interesting.

Chris Ramseyer is a Contributing Editor for Tom's Hardware, covering Storage. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. Follow Tom's Hardware on Twitter, Facebook and Google+.