Seagate launches Mozaic 3+ platform
Seagate has announced the launch of its pioneering hard drive platform utilizing Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR) technology, named “Mozaic 3+”. This platform integrates a multitude of groundbreaking technologies, aimed at the forthcoming Exos hard drives, offering data center products with capacities starting at 30TB and beyond. This release signifies that single-disk capacities will reach 3TB+, with a gradual increase to 4TB+ and 5TB+ in the upcoming years, aligning with the goal of capacity enhancement.
The Mozaic 3+ platform underpins Seagate’s flagship Exos series, introducing the first 30TB mechanical hard drive, the Exos X Mozaic 3+. This product is slated for delivery to hyper-scale data center clients within this quarter, with client certification expected to be completed by the end of the quarter. The new product features 10 platters, achieving a remarkable density of 1.742TB per square inch.
Seagate asserts that, in terms of material usage, the Mozaic 3+ platform’s products are broadly similar to previous PMR hard drives but exhibit a significant increase in capacity. Energy consumption per TB has been enhanced by 40%, employing the “world’s smallest and most sensitive” read heads for data retrieval from the disk surface. The custom-designed main control chip is manufactured using a 12nm process, tripling the efficiency compared to previous solutions. Seagate currently has no plans to increase the number of platters, considering factors like cost, reliability, weight, power consumption, and noise. The new platform also aids customers in achieving sustainability goals, with a 55% reduction in carbon emissions per TB compared to older products.
Dave Mosley, Seagate’s CEO, states that the Mozaic 3+ platform represents not just the HAMR technology but encompasses several industry-first innovative technologies, seamlessly integrated to enhance storage density. As artificial intelligence use cases increasingly emphasize raw data sets, more companies require storage solutions for the resultant voluminous data, making storage density more crucial than ever before.
