This week, Seagate announced that it had started shipping one of its cloud datacenter clients 30+ terabyte hard drives built on its heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) technology. The drives are final qualification samples, but the business expects to start recognising sales of its Corvault systems based on HAMR soon.
“We are tracking well to our stated plans and achieved the key milestone last week of shipping initial qualification units to a cloud launch partner, and we expect to recognize initial revenue from 30TB+ platforms this quarter as part of our Corvault system solutions,” said Dave Mosley, chief executive of Seagate, at the earnings call with analysts and investors earlier this week (via SeekingAlpha).
Recognising revenue means that actual hardware, such as Corvault storage systems based on 30TB+ HAMR HDDs, has already been evaluated by Seagate customers, purchased, shipped, and is currently being qualified. When qualification is complete, Seagate will consider the funds it received as earnings.
In order for customers to evaluate HAMR-based hard disc drives, Seagate has long had high expectations for the technology.
The business recently held an earnings call during which it revealed its plans to introduce its 2nd generation HAMR platform in mainstream hard drives in Q3.
Regarding the number of platters that the original HAMR platform from Seagate can support, not much information has been made available. However, the company will provide customers with a never-before-seen storage density for 3.5-inch HDDs thanks to its storage capacities of over 30TB. The company admits that the percentage of HAMR-based hard drives will not be significant this year, but as HAMR media and HAMR heads become more effective, the percentage will probably rise.
Initially, Seagate wants to build ultra-premium, high-capacity nearline drives for hyperscale cloud datacenters using HAMR discs and heads. To cut manufacturing costs and boost the company’s profitability, these new media and heads will eventually be incorporated into midrange and even entry-level high-capacity HDDs. While the company plans to ramp up production in 2024, Seagate offers no information regarding how quickly its nearline and other drives will transition to HAMR.
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