Seagate wants to release a standard 3.5-inch SATA hard drive with 16TB of storage

Seagate plans to release a 16TB hard drive in 2018, according to a report in Geek . The company is in the process of testing 12TB and 14TB models as well, and has been getting positive feedback on the drives. Currently, the highest storage capacity offered by Seagate in a hard drive is 10TB. All the drives are expected to be helium-filled hard drives.

The higher capacity hard drives from Western Digital have been helium-filled since 2013. Seagate started offering helium filled hard drives from 2016. The internal parts operate with less friction in helium-filled hard drives, and at a lower temperature than conventional hard drives. Filing the drives with helium instead of air increases the efficiency and capacity of hard drives. There are strong seals on such drives, which prevent the drives from being affected by humidity and other pollutants.

The helium filled hard drives are costlier than conventional hard drives. Seagate offers up to 8TB of storage on conventional hard drives that are not filled with helium. The hard drives consume more power, but are much cheaper than the helium-filled drives. The intended market for the high capacity 16TB hard drives are those who are not willing to pay for the 60TB SSD drives — we can’t even imagine what they’ll cost — that Seagate plans to make available to consumers by the end of this year.