While many thought they were doomed in the face of SSDs, hard drives continue their impressive rise in capacity.
Financially, Seagate is currently benefiting from a particularly favorable environment. The manufacturer has reported a significant improvement in its results, driven by growing demand for high-capacity storage solutions for cloud infrastructure and artificial intelligence. The release of the U.S. company’s latest earnings report (.PDF) impressed many observers: a 50% increase in quarterly revenue, resulting in a record profit of $3.184 billion in 2026, compared to just $1.469 billion last year. Seagate’s gross margin is equally impressive, proving that artificial intelligence advocates are willing to pay astronomical sums: Seagate reports that its margin rose from 35.2% to 45.6% year-over-year!
Seagate has unveiled a very ambitious hard drive roadmap. © TechPowerUp
Such performance naturally inspires optimism, and Seagate is banking on its HAMR technology to further strengthen its position as storage needs continue to grow. HAMR ( Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording) significantly increases the data recording density per platter. Following the deployment of its first 40- and 44-TB models with major cloud providers, the manufacturer is now working on hard drives capable of reaching 50 TB per unit. These hard drives, dubbed Mozaic 5, are expected to be available as early as next year, although we still have no idea what prices the company will set for its high-end products.
The 50 TB capacity is made possible by using platters that each hold 5 TB of data. The math is simple: with ten platters per 3.5-inch drive, you get 50 TB of storage. However, this is not an end in itself for Seagate, which has already unveiled a prototype with 6.9 TB platters and has announced that it is working on 8 TB platters. In its new roadmap, the American company mentions, for example, hard drives with a capacity of 80 TB by 2031–2032 and no longer hesitates to discuss models capable of storing 100 TB of data using 10-TB platters beyond 2032.
