Toshiba has introduced its 22TB MG10 series hard drive, following the market entries of similar capacities by Western Digital and Seagate. Designed primarily for server applications, Toshiba's MG10SFA22TE (SAS interface) employs 'Microwave-Assisted Magnetic Recording' (MAMR) technology.
It incorporates ten magnetic disks, mirroring its predecessor, the 20TB MG10SCA20TE, in terms of magnetic disk count. This suggests that the 10% increase in storage capacity might be attributed to an enhancement in bit density per disk. The MG10 22TB model retains several specifications from the 20TB version, such as a 7,200 rpm disk rotation speed, 512 MB data cache, a Mean Time To Failure (MTTF) of 2.5 million hours, and an uncorrectable read error rate of 1 in 10^15 bits read.
Comparatively, Seagate's approach involves the 'Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording' (HAMR) method, which employs lasers to heat the disk for increased data density. Their future plans suggest potential HAMR drives with capacities reaching up to 32TB. Western Digital, on the other hand, currently offers 26TB hard drives with intentions to release 28TB models. Yet, their hard drives utilize 'Shingled Magnetic Recording' (SMR), which may result in reduced write performance due to track overlapping. Presently, the peak in hard drive capacities without the use of SMR stands at 22TB, a mark attained by all three aforementioned manufacturers.
No data on the maximum throughput or power consumption of the 22TB models is available as of this report. However, for context, Toshiba's 20TB variant reportedly has a throughput of 281 MB/s and a power consumption rate of 9.6 watts.
