Seagate has started shipping the first 8 TB hard disk drive, following the release of the smaller 6TB HDDs some months ago. An important step forward in storage, the 8 TB hard disk drive provides scale-out data infrastructures with supersized-capacity, energy-efficiency and low total cost of ownership (TCO).

The 8 TB hard drive comes in an industry-standard 3.5-inch size and it is outfitted with enterprise-class reliability and support for archive workloads. Multi-drive RV tolerance offers consistent performance in high density environments, while the SATA 6Gb/s interface allows for cost-effective, easy system integration in both private and public data centers.

Seagate did not clarify the platter count, spindle speed, and whether the 8TB unit uses shingled magnetic recording (SMR) technology. Unlike traditional recording tech, which puts spaces between individual tracks, SMR layers them on top of each other in a staggered fashion. This overlap increases the bit density of the drive platter, but it can also slow write performance, since altering data requires that overlapping tracks sbe read and rewritten.

The new disk is shipping now to Seagate's customers and wide scale availability is expected next quarter.