Seagate Exos CORP HD 28TB HAMR Enterprise Hard Drive

The Seagate Exos CORP HD 28TB leverages Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR) technology to push areal density beyond the limits of conventional PMR and SMR designs, achieving 28TB of raw capacity on a conventional magnetic recording (CMR) architecture. HAMR employs a near-field laser integrated into the write head to momentarily heat a nanoscale spot on the disk platter, reducing the magnetic coercivity of that region long enough for a precise write operation before the medium re-stabilizes with exceptional long-term bit retention. The result is a drive that delivers the capacity advantages historically associated with SMR while preserving the full random-write performance profile that enterprise workload schedulers and RAID controllers depend on.

Positioned within Seagate's Exos CORP line, this drive is purpose-built for nearline enterprise storage arrays including cloud object storage, large-scale NAS platforms, distributed file systems, and high-capacity backup infrastructure. The HAMR platter stack combines proprietary FePt-based recording media with advanced signal processing and a refined write-channel architecture to sustain high sequential throughput while maintaining acceptable 4K random read and write IOPS for mixed workloads. A 512MB multi-segmented cache buffer accelerates burst operations, and the drive ships with both SATA 6Gb/s and SAS 12Gb/s interface options to fit diverse controller ecosystems.

Launched in Q3 2025, the Exos CORP HD 28TB represents a significant milestone in Seagate's HAMR commercialization roadmap, building on the reliability data accumulated from earlier HAMR volume shipments. It carries a rated annualized failure rate (AFR) consistent with Seagate's Exos enterprise lineup, is validated for 24×7 continuous operation, and supports rotational vibration (RV) sensors and advanced error recovery controls for multi-drive dense enclosures. PowerBalance mode allows administrators to trade a portion of sustained performance for measurable reduction in drive-level power draw, a capability increasingly valued in large-scale data center TCO optimization strategies.

Ideal for

• Hyperscale and cloud object storage platforms requiring maximum per-U raw capacity with CMR write compatibility for all storage controllers
• Enterprise NAS and scale-out file system deployments where deep archive tiers demand high sequential throughput and predictable rebuild times
• Large-scale backup and data protection appliances that ingest continuous sequential streams from multiple simultaneous backup jobs
• Cold and warm data lake infrastructure hosting analytical datasets accessed by distributed query engines such as Apache Spark or Presto
• High-density JBOD and SAS expander shelves in software-defined storage clusters running Ceph, MinIO, or HDFS at petabyte scale
• Media and entertainment content repositories storing high-bitrate raw camera footage, finished assets, and long-term archival masters

Technical specifications

Available from Omnixon Global. Submit an RFQ and our team will confirm configuration and availability for your order.