In the world of hard drives, Western Digital and Seagate keep trading blows with ever more advanced products. The next item on the challenge list is reaching ten terabytes of capacity, and both companies were at the doorstep of that goal with eight terabytes units. This time, however, it’s Western Digital that manages to pull ahead, thanks to its HGST division and a new hard drive injected with helium.
The SSD vs. HDD price gap
Solid-state drives continue to increase their capacity and improve their price. The average SSD has become the upgrade of choice for many users looking to optimize their computers without drastic changes or aggressive investments. Still, the so-called "cost per gigabyte" in an SSD is far from the value carried by a hard drive. Nobody denies that this technology is racing against time, and that sooner or later solid state will match the costs, but hard drives maintain years of distance for one simple reason: they don’t stop increasing their density. The two main manufacturers, Western Digital and Seagate, have been working on special techniques for years, and several of their fruits have already appeared on the market, among them, a new ten-terabyte hard drive.
Helium-filled drives
That’s right: Western Digital’s HGST division (formerly Hitachi) developed a hard drive with ten terabytes of capacity, based on perpendicular magnetic recording, and a sealed environment filled with helium. The idea of saturating the inside of a hard drive with helium isn’t new. In fact, Western Digital already offers drives with this feature, although they have been limited to the enterprise environment due to its high price. The new drive, under the Ultrastar He10 family, also holds an impressive seven platters in just 25.4 millimeters of height, a normal height for the 3.5-inch format.
Seagate’s counterattack
Everything leads us to think that Seagate’s counterattack will come through the implementation of HAMR, or heat-assisted magnetic recording. Basically, it involves precision laser shots on the sections of the drive that are about to be written. It is estimated that with the application of HAMR and its combination with other techniques, hard drives could reach fifteen or even twenty terabytes. Meanwhile, those interested in a 10 TB Ultrastar He10 will likely have to pay between 800 and 900 dollars to get one.
For more details, check the official site.
