Seagate Technology is focusing their R&D efforts on the promising shingled magnetic recording (SMR), two-dimensional MR (TDMR) and heat-assisted MR (HAMR) technologies for future hard disk drives (HDD).

According to the company's senior vice president of Global Sales and Sales Operations BS Teh, the demand for large-capacity HDDs continues to rise, and Seagate is expcted to release 12TB HDD products using existing perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) by the fourth quarter. The first 18TB HDD products are currently in development and should appear on the market in 2018.

Seagate is currently developing SMR-based HDDs with over 12TB capacity and related products are expected to become available in the fourth quarter of 2017 or in 2018.

Seagate also plans to release TDMR-based HDDs in 2017. However, HAMR technology's 5Tb/square-inch storage capability is expected to prompt Seagate to focus more on HAMR technology development. Seagate's first 16TB HAMR HDD is expected to make its arrival in 2018 at the earliest.