As technology continues to improve, so does the storage space requirements for gaming PCs and consoles. Even recently, many fans were surprised about the file size for Cyberpunk 2077, which was so large that it had to ship on two discs.
To combat this, Seagate, one notable manufacturer that makes storage expansion cards for consoles like the Xbox Series X among other things, recently released news of the company's achievements during its Virtual Analyst Event. The company said if things go according to plan, it will release 100TB hard drives in less than a decade. Then in 2030, the company hopes to break the 120TB boundary and keep moving forward.
HDD storage systems approximately amounted to over a zettabyte of shipped storage last year, so it makes sense that these improvements need to be made in a costly manner. For reference, some of the largest and most expensive hard drives currently on Newegg are only 18TB and cost around $400. This news further cements that the world's need for mass amounts of HDD storage is not going away in the near future.
Seagate said that reaching this goal will depend on its progress with improving heat-assisted magnetic recording technology, otherwise known as HAMR tech. This type of magnet technology is what allows data bits on the hard drive disks to be more tightly packed while remaining magnetically stable. This, in turn, is crucial for helping the data get written on the hard drive in the first place.
Jeff Fochtman, Seagate's senior vice president, talked about the dire need to move forward from the current perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) technology used in today's hard drives. Fochtman explained that PMR tech is reaching its maximum usefulness, and the tech capacity is only increasing by one-to-two TB at a time. However, with HAMR tech, he predicts jumps in improvements can happen somewhere between four and 10TB at a time.
In a more detailed roadmap, Seagate predicts that it will be capable of releasing over 30TB HDDs by 2023, over 40TB HDDs by 2025, and 50TB HDDs in 2026. Seagate explained these goals would be possible while also using fully bit patterned media (BPM) to move from 2.6TB of storage per square inch to eight TB per square inch. It will be interesting to see how this technology's pricing comes out and if it will prove to be competitive against solid-state drives. Hopefully, Seagate can handle this task within its time frame.
Source: PC Gamer