Hard disk drives (HDDs) have seen tremendous growth in capacity over the years. In 1956, IBM released the first commercial HDD called the RAMAC 350 with a capacity of just 5MB. Today, HDD capacities have reached into the tens of terabytes. In 2022, Western Digital announced a 26TB HDD, showing there is still room for growth. But is a 24TB HDD currently available on the market?
Current High Capacity HDDs
Yes, there are currently HDDs available with 24TB of storage capacity. Here are some of the leading models:
| HDD Model | Capacity | Release Year |
|---|---|---|
| Seagate Exos X24 | 24TB | 2019 |
| Toshiba MG09ACA24TE | 24TB | 2021 |
| Western Digital Ultrastar DC HC550 | 24TB | 2021 |
As the table shows, Seagate, Toshiba, and Western Digital have all released 24TB HDDs over the past couple of years. The Seagate Exos X24 was one of the first 24TB HDDs available, released in 2019. Toshiba and Western Digital both launched 24TB models in 2021.
HDD Technology Advances
HDD manufacturers continue to push the limits of capacity through advances in technology. Here are some of the key innovations that have enabled HDDs to reach 24TB and beyond:
– **More platter capacity:** Increasing the areal density by fitting more bits onto each platter is key. Current models use up to 10 platters. With higher areal densities, manufacturers can fit more terabytes without adding platters.
– **Helium filling:** Filling HDD enclosures with helium instead of air allows the platters to be closer together without friction. This increases density.
– **Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR):** SMR overlaps tracks like shingles on a roof to pack more data in the same space.
– **Two-dimensional magnetic recording (TDMR):** TDMR uses more precise lasers to enable narrower tracks and higher track density on platters.
– ** Microwave Assisted Magnetic Recording (MAMR):** MAMR uses microwaves to make the magnetic material on disks more responsive, enabling greater bit density.
These innovations in platters, recording techniques, and reading/writing density have enabled HDD capacities to continue growing well past 10TB. Manufacturers continue developing new technologies to push HDD capacities even higher.
Uses Cases for 24TB HDDs
Current 24TB hard drives are designed for enterprise and data center use cases that require massive storage capacity. A few examples include:
– **Cloud storage:** Major cloud providers need high density drives to store exabytes of data across their massive data centers.
– **Data archiving:** Organizations need dense cold storage for archiving massive amounts of compliance, backup, and reference data.
– **AI and machine learning:** Training AI and machine learning models requires ingesting and processing colossal datasets, necessitating high capacity storage.
– **Video surveillance:** Video surveillance systems generate staggering amounts of high resolution footage that needs to be stored and accessed efficiently.
– **High performance computing (HPC):** Research facilities, universities, and other HPC sites collect and analyze terabytes of data and need scalable high capacity storage.
While aimed at enterprises currently, 24TB HDDs could become more common in consumer PC builds as prices decline over time. But in the near term, the average consumer has little need for 24TB drives.
Price
As you might expect, these high capacity 24TB drives carry a hefty price tag. Currently, 24TB HDDs range from around $600 up to $1000 or more per drive. Here are sample prices for some popular enterprise 24TB models:
| HDD Model | Price |
|---|---|
| Seagate Exos X24 | $715 |
| Toshiba MG09ACA24TE | $935 |
| WD Ultrastar DC HC550 | $655 |
The drives are geared for data center customers who require massive scalable storage and are willing to pay a premium for maximum capacity. Over time, prices will decrease and make 24TB more practical for smaller organizations and enthusiasts.
Reliability
HDD vendors quote an annualized failure rate (AFR) to measure reliability. This represents the percentage of drives that fail in a year. Enterprise models aimed at data centers are typically rated for a 0.35% to 0.8% AFR, delivering an average of 1.2 million hours MTBF (mean time between failures).
Here are the published reliability figures for popular 24TB models:
| HDD Model | Annualized Failure Rate |
|---|---|
| Seagate Exos X24 | 0.35% AFR |
| Toshiba MG09ACA24TE | 0.35% AFR |
| WD Ultrastar DC HC550 | 0.8% AFR |
While not bulletproof, these ultra high capacity drives still deliver enterprise-grade reliability to minimize disruption and data loss. Servers and storage arrays use redundancy and backups to overcome any individual drive failures.
Performance
While not blazing fast like SSDs, these high capacity HDDs provide decent performance for throughput-intensive business applications. The drives use the SATA interface and spin at 7200RPM.
Here are the specs for popular 24TB models:
| HDD Model | Sustained Transfer Rate | Cache |
|---|---|---|
| Seagate Exos X24 | 261 MB/s | 256 MB |
| Toshiba MG09ACA24TE | 267 MB/s | 512 MB |
| WD Ultrastar DC HC550 | 261 MB/s | 256 MB |
With tuning technologies like caching, Native Command Queuing (NCQ), and boosting areal densities, HDD vendors have managed to lift throughput speeds above 250 MB/s – no slouch for sequential transfers. Enterprise applications are designed for streaming big chunks of data where HDD performance shines.
Power and Thermal
Cramming dozens of platters and heads into a 3.5” HDD chassis leads to some thermal and energy considerations. Here are the power ratings for popular 24TB models while in operation:
| HDD Model | Power Consumption |
|---|---|
| Seagate Exos X24 | 9.1W (read/write) |
| Toshiba MG09ACA24TE | 10.4W (read/write) |
| WD Ultrastar DC HC550 | 10.1W (read/write) |
These drives consume around 10W when active. To dissipate heat, chassis are designed with high airflow over HAMR heads and multiple smooth contact recording (MSCR) platters. Operating temperatures range from 5° to 60°C.
For archival storage, HelioSeal technology enables WD Ultrastar drives to operate at idle down to 2.2W. Overall, power and thermal is well managed to ensure drive reliability.
Alternative Storage Options
While 24TB HDDs provide massive bulk storage for cheap, there are some limitations. Alternative options exist depending on performance, cost, and capacity needs:
– **SSDs:** All flash storage delivers vastly faster IO performance and latencies. More expensive per TB but ideal for IOPS-intensive applications.
– **Hybrid flash arrays:** Combine SSD and HDD storage. Hot data is cached on flash while cold data goes on high capacity HDDs. Provides balance of speed and density.
– **Magnetic tape:** Tape is very cheap per TB but extremely slow for random access. Useful for long-term archiving and backups. LTO-9 tapes store 18TB uncompressed.
– **Optical discs:** Blu-ray Discs offer up to 1TB per disc for offline archiving but very slow transfer speeds.
– **Cloud services:** Cloud storage gives limitless capacity without managing physical hardware. But can have higher monthly costs for enormous datasets and high egress bandwidth fees.
Organizations should assess their needs around capacity, performance, budget, and use cases when deciding between HDDs, SSDs, tape, cloud services, and archival media.
Conclusion
In summary, yes – there are absolutely 24TB hard disk drives available on the market today from major manufacturers like Seagate, Toshiba, and Western Digital. Leading HDD vendors continue pushing the limits of areal density using innovations like SMR, HAMR, MAMR, and helium sealing to break capacity barriers. 24TB represents the cutting edge currently, but even higher capacities are on the horizon. While priced as premium enterprise drives, 24TB HDDs deliver ample capacity for petabyte-scale data centers along with decent throughput. As pricing evolves, 24TB HDDs will become more accessible to smaller organizations and enthusiasts as well. But for most average consumers, 24TB remains overkill for desktop PC storage needs. Beyond 24TB hard drives, alternatives like SSDs, tape, cloud storage, and optical discs offer other benefits around speed, portability, and long-term retention.