Western Digital to Launch First 40TB Hard Drives in 2H2026

At its recent investor day, Western Digital outlined its plans to increase hard drive capacity over the next ten years. The company presented a roadmap — a step-by-step plan for the evolution of technology: from energy-efficient perpendicular magnetic recording (ePMR) to heated magnetic recording (HAMR) and, eventually, to hot spot magnetic recording (HDMR) when hard drive capacity exceeds 100 TB.

Image source: westerndigital.com

As early as 2026, HAMR technology will help Western Digital achieve disk capacities of 36–44 TB. This solution involves heating the recording layer of the media using a laser beam, which allows for a temporary reduction in the magnetic resistance (coercivity) of the disk and recording data at a higher density.

«Other companies have started to implement HAMR in 30TB hard drives, but we believe that the true potential of HAMR is realized from 40TB onwards. Until then, we will continue to use technologies such as OptiNAND and UltraSMR to increase the capacity of existing hard drives to 40TB. We are targeting the second half of 2026 for the 40TB drives,” Kimihiko Nishio, sales manager at Western Digital Japan, told PC Watch in a recent interview.

Thanks to advances in artificial intelligence, the amount of data being generated is rapidly increasing, and so is the demand. “There is a huge surge in interest in generative AI right now, but the storage segment has not yet seen any tangible benefits from it. Currently, the highest demand is for GPU-based servers. First, data is generated in large quantities, and then it needs to be stored. This is when we expect demand for data storage to spike. We expect the spike to occur in the second half of 2026, so we are aligning the development of high-capacity HAMR drives with that timeframe. Since HAMR requires a complex material upgrade, starting production now when demand is still low (for example, for 40 TB drives) will result in high costs. But we expect demand to pick up in 2-3 years, which will allow us to offer them at reasonable prices. Looking ahead, by 2030 we plan to release drives with a capacity of 100 TB, after which we will strive for even larger capacities using new technologies,” Mr. Nishio explained.