Toshiba starts shipping SMR MAMR enterprise hard drives offering up to 34TB of storage

Toshiba has started shipping its M12 Series 3.5-inch enterprise HDDs aimed at data centers and cloud providers.

The M12 drives use SMR combined with Toshiba's Flux Control MAMR and add an 11th glass platter to reach 30–34TB capacities.

The drives are helium-filled, deliver up to 282MB/s, support a 550TB annual workload, and use a host-managed SMR architecture.

Toshiba plans CMR drives with up to 28TB in Q3 and lists HAMR and larger 12-platter units on its roadmap.