Toshiba today announced its MG07ACAxxx series HDDs that come in capacities of 12 TB and 14 TB. Both drives are available in a 3.5” form-factor and contain Helium to allow the platters be closer to each other. Rumors about the drives popped up earlier this year.
Toshiba's MG07ACA12 has a capacity of 12TB and contains 8 platters, the MG07ACA14 can store 14 TB of data that is distributed over 9 platters. The platters make use of perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) technology, have a 256MB cache, and spin at 7200RPM. The drives are targeted at enterprise and cloud storage usage.
The MG07ACAxxx series HDDs are the successors of the MG06ACAxxx series drives which come in capacities of up to 10TB. Unlike those disks, the new drives contain Helium.
Helium has a lower density than air which has the benefit that platters and heads suffer from less friction. This in its turn reduces generation of heat which allows platters to be closer to each other and thus higher capacity drives. Because in Helium it takes less energy to rotate the platters, the Helium filled HDDs also consume less energy. To properly function, the HDDs have to be airtight. Toshiba claims to use precision laser welding technology to seal the Helium inside the HDDs.
Toshiba has started to sent out samples to its customers, later they should become widely available. The company hasn't disclosed any pricing information.
