Seagate Releases 30TB HAMR Drives for Consumer Use at $600

Seagate has launched its first consumer-facing hard drives utilizing Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR) technology, marking a significant milestone in storage technology. The new 30TB IronWolf Pro and Exos M drives are priced at $600, with a slightly lower 28TB version available for $570. These drives employ HAMR, a cutting-edge technology that uses tiny lasers to heat and expand sections of the drive platters at nanosecond speeds, allowing for higher data density. This release follows the 2024 deployment of HAMR drives for data center customers, which reached up to 36TB. The 30TB model uses Seagate’s Mosaic 3+ platform and achieves an areal density of 3TB per disk. Western Digital is planning to release its own HAMR-based drives in 2027, while Toshiba is preparing samples for testing in 2025. Despite the availability of these drives for individual buyers, they are primarily intended for NAS (Network-Attached Storage) and enterprise-level applications, with specific mounting and ventilation requirements to ensure reliability and longevity. Seagate’s entry into this space positions it ahead of its competitors in the storage market, offering both high capacity and cutting-edge technology for serious users.