Seagate Reveals that it’s Shipping 8TB Hard Drive Samples to Customers

When 4TB hard drives first hit the scene, I remember thinking about the future of mechanical storage, and whether or not we’d actually see 6TB or more in a single drive. After all, the fact that we have 4TB in a single drive is a technological feat, and solutions absolutely had to be discovered to keep the progression going. Well, since then, we have seen the release of a 6TB model, and even an odd-sized 5TB. Maybe that roadblock is still quite a ways away?

Well, on account of the fact that Seagate’s been shipping 8TB models to customers, that does look to be the case. This juicy bit of info was revealed during the company’s Q4 earnings call last week, and was picked up by HotHardware.

Seagate’s current top-density drive, the 6TB Enterprise Capacity 3.5

Seagate hinted earlier this year that the company was on track to deliver 8TB and 10TB models in 2015, but given the fact that customers are already receiving 8TB models for testing, it gives the hope that we might just see them before the end of the year. But that said, considering the fact that Seagate’s only 6TB model is an enterprise-specific drive, I think it’s safe to say that the 8TB will be exclusive to that series as well – at least at first. As it stands today, the highest-capacity model for consumers is 6TB, such as with WD’s just-announced Green and Red drives.

As hard drive densities grow, so too does my concern over data security. It’s always been a good idea to have data redundancy, whether it be accomplished with RAID or simply making sure you have a second copy, but when we’re dealing with many terabytes, redundancy is truly important. No matter what it is, no one is going to be happy with losing 4TB or more in one fell swoop. I guess that’s a good thing for companies like Seagate, since people will feel more compelled to pick up a second drive. It could bode well for NAS companies, as well.