Seagate launches three new 32 TB hard drives across its product lines, all using CMR tech — SkyHawk AI drive starts from $699, flagship Exos at $849
Aimed at modern AI workloads.
In the AI boom, we've already seen data centers switch to hard drives not only to alleviate cost, but also to combat limited SSD availability. Now, Seagate is here to help by updating its existing lineups with new 32 TB variants created for AI workloads: SkyHawk AI for $699.99, Exos for $729.99, and the top-end IronWolf Pro for $849.99. These are much less exclusive, though, and technically aimed at regular consumers.
The 32 TB capacity represents the largest size mainstream, generally available HDDs have been able to reach. To be clear, higher capacity drives do exist, but they're enterprise-grade; not available directly from the manufacturer's website. Moreover, Seagate itself has 32 TB offerings built using HAMR, but these new units all use Conventional Magnetic Recording (CMR) for consistent and reliable performance.
Moreover, all three of these are standard 3.5" SATA III drives, spinning at 7200 RPM, and equipped with a 512 MB cache pool. In terms of workload, these are rated for ~550 TB/year with 2.5 million hours of MTBF. You'll also find the same 5-year warranty included across the board, along with Seagate's software suite.
As for SKU-specific specs, the SkyHawk AI is the entry-level "video-optimized" option, and Seagate says it can record/store more than 10,000 hours of video with metadata and analysis. It includes a bunch of AI features like ImagePerfect AI, which is supposed to prevent dropped frames when running tens of streams in parallel. The drive can also sustain read/write speeds of up to 285 MB/s.
Moving on to the IronWolf Pro, its 32 TB variant is aimed at sprawling NAS setups where multi-bay configs are the norm. It shares many of the same specs but comes with AgileArray software for RAID configs. It also has RV sensors to maintain performance when spinning next to other drives. You also get IronWolf Health Management for predictable health monitoring. It's priced at $729.99, so just $30 more than the SkyHawk.
Finally, we have the top-end Exos 32 TB, which is technically not a consumer hard drive since it's aimed at small to mid-sized hyperscalers, but no one's stopping you from buying one. The press release says Seagate is targeting data center reliability with Exos thanks to its Mozaic technology. Once again, the on-paper specs are largely identical, but these should consume less power, which matters in cloud environments. Exos drives also have an impressive 3 TB per platter density.
We couldn't find an active listing for this one, sadly, but links for the other drives are included above. So, whether you're just an enthusiast looking to level up your archival duties, or a professional hunting for an enterprise-grade solution for your company, there's at least one drive in these lineups that fits your needs.
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Hassam Nasir is a die-hard hardware enthusiast with years of experience as a tech editor and writer, focusing on detailed CPU comparisons and general hardware news. When he’s not working, you’ll find him bending tubes for his ever-evolving custom water-loop gaming rig or benchmarking the latest CPUs and GPUs just for fun.
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pug_s I really don't understand why Sata specs haven't changed since 3.0 while hard drive size increased dramatically. Clearly they could've changed the speed from 6.0gb/sec to 12gb/sec or even higher.Reply -
Notton Reply
Product segmentation; that's what SAS is for.pug_s said:I really don't understand why Sata specs haven't changed since 3.0 while hard drive size increased dramatically. Clearly they could've changed the speed from 6.0gb/sec to 12gb/sec or even higher.
It's not necessary because even a dual actuator 7200rpm HDD is barely capable of saturating spec. -
JaiJai1 Reply
any faster and their life spans decrease. Slower lasts longerpug_s said:I really don't understand why Sata specs haven't changed since 3.0 while hard drive size increased dramatically. Clearly they could've changed the speed from 6.0gb/sec to 12gb/sec or even higher. -
Grobe Reply
The maximum data transfer speed of the data cable are not related to mechanical wear in any significant way.JaiJai1 said:any faster and their life spans decrease. Slower lasts longer
The rotation speed of the disks are. -
twin_savage Reply
and the main reason (besides the fact that SAS SSDs exist) for SAS getting higher speeds is because SAS expanders often run 6 HDDs per SAS lane so they need to be fast in order not to bottleneck.Notton said:Product segmentation; that's what SAS is for.
It's not necessary because even a dual actuator 7200rpm HDD is barely capable of saturating spec.
SATA's exquivilent to this is a complete dumpster fire that should never be used; but perhaps if the specification for port multipliers wasn't so thouroughly botched there would be more pressure for a faster revision of SATA to come out.
The exact opposite is true, but not because of the speed of the disk. The reason slow rotational rate HDDs don't last as long is because they are the worse balanced and binned components that the HDD factories come across put together. All the best balanced and binned components go into the faster or more up market HDDs.JaiJai1 said:any faster and their life spans decrease. Slower lasts longer -
leclod "Moreover, Seagate itself has 32 TB offerings built using HAMR, but these new units all use Conventional Magnetic Recording (CMR)"Reply
CMR and HAMR aren't mutually exclusive, those 32TB drives must be HAMR drives.
And of course SATA didn't evolve past SATA3 because it's useless.
I haven't yet seen or heard of an HDD crossing the 300MB/s barrier.
Edit : rather the 600MB/s barrier -
icraft ReplySkyHawk AI for $699.99, Exos for $729.99, and the top-end IronWolf Pro for $849.99.
Later in the article
IronWolf Health Management for predictable health monitoring. It's priced at $729.99, so just $30 more than the SkyHawk.
Finally, we have the top-end Exos 32 TB
One of them is wrong -
twin_savage Reply
I'm hitting 587MB/s on first gen mach.2 HDDsleclod said:I haven't yet seen or heard of an HDD crossing the 300MB/s barrier. -
wwenze1 Reply
As in, the current 32TB drives are SMR HAMR. The 32TB CMR HAMR are new.leclod said:"Moreover, Seagate itself has 32 TB offerings built using HAMR, but these new units all use Conventional Magnetic Recording (CMR)"
CMR and HAMR aren't mutually exclusive, those 32TB drives must be HAMR drives.
And of course SATA didn't evolve past SATA3 because it's useless.
I haven't yet seen or heard of an HDD crossing the 300MB/s barrier.
Dec 2024 article
https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/hdds/seagate-launches-32tb-exos-m-hard-drive-based-on-hamr-technology-mozaic-3-drives-are-the-worlds-first-generally-available-hamr-hdds
"Coinciding with this, Seagate silently published the product page for its Exos M HDDs, which includes a 32TB model using the shingled magnetic recording (SMR) storage format and a 30TB model using conventional magnetic recording (CMR)."
We only increased 6.7% CMR capacity after 1 year? -
leclod Reply
I thought so too. Still, what he wrote is wrong (or poorly written).wwenze1 said:As in, the current 32TB drives are SMR HAMR. The 32TB CMR HAMR are new.