At Computex, Western Digital reiterated plans to start high-volume shipments of hard disk drives featuring heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) technology in 2027. However, before going all-in with HAMR, the company plans to introduce its last and final ePMR 2-based generation of HDDs next year.
Western Digital’s initial HAMR drives will come in several variants: a 36TB version using conventional magnetic recording, a 40 TB model using shingled track layout (SMR), and a 44TB model using UltraSMR technology with a variety of proprietary enhancements aimed at select partners. But before launching HAMR-based products, Western Digital intends to offer a 36TB HDD featuring its UltraSMR technology and a lower capacity CMR HDD featuring energy-assisted perpendicular magnetic recording (ePMR 2) technology sometime next year.
Since HAMR is a brand-new technology both for Western Digital and for its partners, it is going to take a while before its partners fully qualify the new drives. These products are scheduled to complete validation with cloud service providers by the end of 2026, after which large-scale production will begin in 2027. Two hyperscale clients are already evaluating prototype units, though Western Digital has not disclosed their configuration details.
Western Digital’s journey to HAMR has been lengthy. While its competitor Seagate, backed this approach early on, Western Digital initially focused on an alternative technique using microwave energy in 2017. However, Western Digital eventually abandoned its MAMR technique in 2019 after redirecting its efforts toward energy-assisted perpendicular recording, which is now the basis for its high-capacity products.
Western Digital hopes that HAMR technology will provide enough potential to increase HDD capacities to 80TB (CMR) – 100TB (UltraSMR) by 2030, which suggests a pretty aggressive capacity increase starting in 2027.
Seagate’s bet on HAMR seems to have paid off. The company is shipping its HAMR-based HDDs to partners (albeit not to everyone) and its lineup already includes a 36TB shingled HAMR hard drive. By now, only Toshiba — the world’s third maker of hard drives — has not formally announced its HAMR transition timeframe.
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