Seagate has shipped the world's first 8TB hard disk drive, less than one year after the first 6TB HDD was announced by HGST, a subsidiary of archrival WD.
Not much is known about the drive other than the fact that it is a 3.5-inch model with multi-drive RV torelance, SATA 6 and will target "scale-out data infrastructures".
Seagate also claims that the drive has the best Watts/GB ratings for the data storage industry and has the lowest cost/TB compared to competitors.
Last month, the company's CEO, Steve Luczo confirmed that the first 8TB models were shipping to partners who signed to its Kinetic object-oriented storage platform programme.
10TB coming soon
Given that he mentioned 10TB models, we wonder whether Seagate isn't moving to mass produce 2TB platters that use Singled Magnetic Recording (SMR) technology. Seagate unveiled its first 6TB hard disk drive back in April, well after HGST.
The average price of 4TB hard disk drives has been gradually falling down, currently hovering at about £20 (about $33, AU$ 36) per TB. Although it has already been shipping to select customers, it will be available in quantity in the fourth quarter of the year.
At the time of writing, Seagate has yet to publish a picture of the drive or even list it on its website.
