Toshiba Electronics Europe GmbH has announced that Toshiba Electronic Devices & Storage Corporation (Toshiba) is the first in the storage industry to verify 12-disk stacking technology for high-capacity hard disk drives (HDDs). Bycombining this achievement with Microwave-Assisted Magnetic Recording (MAMR) technology, the company aims to introduce 40TB-class 3.5-inch HDDs for data centers to the market in 2027.
This 12-disk stacking technology leverages advanced design and analysis technologies that Toshiba has developed in creating thin, compact products, and adds two disks to the standard 10-disk, 3.5-inch disk track used in the company’s nearline HDDs. Key advances include the development of new dedicated parts in the stack and the replacement of the current aluminum substrate medium with a glass substrate that offers greater durability and allows thinner designs. These advances deliver improved mechanical stability and inplane accuracy, higher density, and greater reliability.
Data generation and storage continue to explode as cloud services expand, streaming video services gain in popularity, and generative AI and data science enjoy rapid growth. Recognizing the need to increase storage capacities, Toshiba is also investigating the use of 12-disk stacking technology in conjunction with next-generation Heat Assisted Magnetic
Recording (HAMR).
The goal is to develop higher-capacity HDD solutions that keep pace with the ever-growing storage demands from data centers while achieving a lower total cost of ownership (TCO) for customers. Toshiba’s new 12-disk stacking technology will be featured at the IDEMA Symposium on October 17, 2025, in Kawasaki, Japan.
