Toshiba begins sampling of 30-34 TB SMR nearline HDDs
M12 Series HDDs leverage Toshiba’s proprietary design and analysis technologies cultivated through the development of slimmer and more compact components. The new M12 is the first glass substrate nearline HDD for Toshiba.
Toshiba Electronic Devices & Storage Corporation has announced the M12 Series of 3.5-inch nearline hard disk drives (HDDs) for hyperscale and cloud service providers. The new M12 HDDs employ Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR) technology to deliver storage capacities ranging from 30 to 34 TB.
Sample shipments of SMR-based HDDs have begun with plans to begin sample shipments of Conventional Magnetic Recording-based (CMR) models with capacities up to 28 TB to commence in the third quarter of 2026, Toshiba said in a press release.
“The requirement from data centers, the repositories for most of the world’s digital data, is for higher-capacity, better performing HDDs to support more efficient system configurations,” Toshiba said. “The M12 Series is designed to meet these requirements by significantly increasing storage capacity in the standard 3.5-inch nearline HDD form factor.”
M12 Series HDDs leverage Toshiba’s proprietary design and analysis technologies cultivated through the development of slimmer and more compact components. Additionally, the new M12 is the first glass substrate nearline HDD for Toshiba, and the use of glass substrates increases the HDD’s durability while enabling thinner designs.
The HDDs are enclosed in helium and combine Toshiba’s proprietary Flux Control Microwave-Assisted Magnetic Recording (FC‑MAMR) technology with SMR to achieve storage capacities of 30 to 34TB.
The new M12 SMR HDDs reach a maximum data transfer rate of 282MiB/s, an improvement of approximately 8%, while power consumption efficiency per terabyte (W/TB) is approximately 18% lower than previous generations. Designed for continuous 24/7 operation, the M12 Series supports an annual workload rating of 550TB and offers an MTTF/MTBF of 2.5 million hours with an annualized failure rate (AFR) of 0.35%, the press release said.
To meet the growing storage demand of data centers, Toshiba plans to introduce next-generation products based on Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR) and 12-disk configurations in upcoming quarters.