Data storage manufacturer company, Seagate is planning to develop a 100TB (Terabytes) hard drive by 2030. This new drive will help data centers and servers move on from the old-school technology they use. This massive capacity of hard drives will also directly impact the AI and ML fields, because storage is one of the main concerns for AI developers. Handling and storing many datasets and AI models are currently the main challenges for developers.
As CNBC shows, Ban-Seng Teh, Seagate’s CCO, told the company it aims to release a hard drive with a capacity over three times that of Seagate’s top series hard drive by 2030. Their largest hard drive is the Exos M model, which was released in January 2025, and can store data up to 36 Terabytes.
History of hard drives
Returning to the history lesson, the world’s first hard drive was the IBM Model 350 Disk File. It was introduced in 1956 and came from the RAMAC system. The Coolest part was that the drive weighed over a ton and was roughly the size of two refrigerators. Its storage capacity is only 3.75 MB; it needs fifty 24-inch platters to achieve this capacity.
I mentioned this history to help you better understand its capacity and the development that has been done in recent years.
So, back to the topic, CNBC asked, “You may be thinking, ‘Who would need it?’” and showed the CCO as an answer. He said, referring to the idea of a 100TB hard drive, “Well, plenty.”, He added, “I think there’s strong demand” for it.
Latest article: OpenAI Chat GPT Banned in Italy
After AI became popular, companies like Nvidia became more popular because their GPUs are best for AI processing. Seagate, however, will push its limits with the storage requirement for the entire global market of AI systems.
By the way, when capacity increases, it is massively troublesome for storage device manufacturers to manage the devices’ power consumption. This matter also applies to GPUs; when the processing speed increases, the power consumption increases. When dealing with larger datasets and computational power, it’s normal. Still, manufacturers must think about this factor as well, I guess.
In a CNBC discussion with Mr. Teh, at Seagate, he mentioned that they are focusing on energy consumption solutions for their new products. So let’s see what the future holds.
What do you think about this rapid development of the AI Field, where it goes and where it’s stopped? Drop a comment below with your thoughts. See you in another hot news like this.