14 DAY TRIAL // Western Digital is the only company with 6 TB hard disk drive units up for sale, and Seagate does not approve of this at all, so it is determined to launch one of its own before April is over and done with.
Well, technically, the company that made the 6 TB, helium-filled HDD is HGST, formerly Hitachi Global Storage Technologies. But Western Digital owns HGST now, so it's all the same thing.
Anyway, Seagate does not want to lag behind Western Digital, not that that's a new development, so it is determined to unveil a 6 TB drive of its own.
Said storage device would have six platters, or disks as they are more commonly called. As we have said before, shipments should start at the beginning of the second quarter.
“We are continuing to expand our offering of high capacity drives with our six-disk, 6TB drive shipping early next quarter,” stated Steve Luczo, chairman and chief executive of Seagate.
Those words were said during the conference call with investors and financial analysts, the kind that happen periodically, once every three months.
Sadly, Seagate did not say anything about what the drive would be like, so we can only assume it will be a 3.5-inch model.
HGST managed to squeeze its capacity inside that package because it used helium instead of air to fill the interior of the units.
It's what ultimately allowed the disks to stay closer together, without warping at high rotary speeds. Helium is a seventh of the density of air after all.
Obviously, Seagate can't do the same thing, although we suppose it's not totally impossible that it will use something similar, since lower drag force is a must if more than four/five platters are to be crammed inside the 3.5-inch package.
The platters should use PMR (perpendicular magnetic recording technology), PMR (perpendicular magnetic recording technology) and shingled magnetic recording (SMR) technology (25% higher areal density). Maybe this means 7.5TB drives are coming too.