Toshiba reveals its first FC-MAMR Hard Drive, a massive 18TB Helium-filled HDD

Toshiba has launched its first FC-MAMR HDD, a Flux-Controlled Microwave-Assisted Magnetic Recording hard drive that features an 18TB capacity. This drive is the flagship of Toshiba’s new MG09 series of HDDs, which uses Toshiba’s 3rd generation 9-platter helium sealed platform, which features 18 read/write heads. 

Toshiba’s FC-MAMR technology is designed to allow the company to write more data onto each hard drive platter by using a microwave emitting component to energise their hard disks before data writes. This allows more data to be present on each hard disk within their MAMR-enabled drives, enabling larger storage capacities and more data-dense HDDs. 

With their FC-MAMR technology, Toshiba can create HDDs that offer users 2TB of data per platter. In the MG09 series, these platters will spin at 7200 RPM and feature lower power consumption levels than competing drives when operating within the drive’s low power modes. At idle, these drives will consume 0.23W per TB, which is great news for end-users. For data centres, where hundreds of HDDs may be operating at once, low idle power consumption drives add up to deliver tremendous power savings. 

In the future, Toshiba plans to create higher capacity HDDs using its FC-MAMR technology, enabling more data-dense servers while maintaining the data capacity advantages of hard disk drives over their solid state counterparts. 

Toshiba plans to start shipping samples of their MG09 series 18TB FC-MAMR HDDs before the end of March 2021.