Seagate launches three new 32 TB hard drives across its product lines, all using CMR tech — SkyHawk AI drive starts from $699, flagship Exos at $849

Seagate has unveiled three new 32 TB hard disk drives spanning its SkyHawk AI, IronWolf Pro, and Exos product families, representing the largest capacity now mainstream-available in the HDD market. All three drives utilize Conventional Magnetic Recording (CMR) technology rather than Seagate's Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR), providing consistent performance characteristics that enterprise and consumer buyers expect.

Technical Specifications and Common Architecture

All three 32 TB models share fundamental hardware specifications. They are standard 3.5-inch SATA III drives spinning at 7200 RPM with a 512 MB cache pool. The drives carry a 5-year warranty and are rated for approximately 550 TB of annual workload with 2.5 million hours mean time between failures (MTBF). Seagate includes its software suite across all models.

The 32 TB capacity represents a significant milestone in mainstream HDD availability. While higher-capacity drives exist in enterprise channels, they are not typically offered directly through manufacturer websites. Seagate's own HAMR-based 32 TB drives have been available previously, but these new CMR variants provide an alternative for buyers who prefer conventional recording technology.

SkyHawk AI: Video and AI Workload Optimization

The SkyHawk AI 32 TB serves as the entry-level option at $699.99, targeting video surveillance and AI analytics workloads. Seagate designed this drive for continuous recording scenarios with metadata generation and analysis.

The drive includes ImagePerfect AI firmware, which manages multiple parallel video streams while preventing dropped frames. According to Seagate's specifications, the SkyHawk AI can record and store over 10,000 hours of video content when combined with metadata and analysis data. The drive sustains read/write speeds up to 285 MB/s, suitable for real-time video ingestion and playback.

This model is particularly relevant for surveillance systems that capture video and simultaneously run AI analysis on the footage. The firmware optimizes for mixed read/write patterns typical in these environments, where video is written continuously but metadata and analyzed segments are read back frequently.

IronWolf Pro: NAS and RAID Environments

The IronWolf Pro 32 TB, priced at $729.99, focuses on multi-bay Network Attached Storage (NAS) configurations. This $30 premium over the SkyHawk AI includes NAS-specific features that matter in multi-drive environments.

Key differentiators include AgileArray software for RAID configuration optimization and RV (Rotational Vibration) sensors that maintain performance when drives operate in close proximity. In multi-bay NAS systems, multiple drives spinning simultaneously create rotational vibrations that can affect read/write head positioning. The RV sensors compensate for this, ensuring consistent performance.

IronWolf Health Management provides predictive health monitoring, analyzing drive behavior patterns to forecast potential failures. This is critical in NAS environments where drives operate continuously and data redundancy is managed through RAID configurations.

Exos 32 TB: Data Center Focus

The Exos 32 TB represents the flagship offering at $849.99, though Seagate positions it for small to mid-sized hyperscalers rather than direct consumer purchase. Despite this positioning, the drive remains available for purchase by enthusiasts and businesses requiring data center-grade reliability.

The Exos line incorporates Mozaic technology, Seagate's platform for achieving high areal density. While on-paper specifications mirror the other models, the Exos drives are optimized for power efficiency, a critical factor in cloud and data center environments where thousands of drives operate simultaneously. Power consumption per terabyte directly impacts operational costs at scale.

The Exos 32 TB achieves 3 TB per platter density, representing advanced magnetic recording technology. This density allows the 32 TB capacity within standard form factors while maintaining compatibility with existing data center infrastructure.

Market Context and Supply Chain Implications

These releases address several concurrent market pressures. The AI boom has increased demand for storage capacity as data centers require both training data repositories and inference result storage. Simultaneously, SSD supply constraints and higher costs per terabyte have made HDDs economically attractive for bulk storage needs.

The choice of CMR technology over HAMR reflects practical market considerations. CMR provides predictable performance characteristics that buyers understand, while HAMR introduces new variables in reliability and compatibility, despite its potential for higher future densities. By offering 32 TB in CMR, Seagate provides maximum capacity without requiring customers to adopt new recording technology.

For buyers evaluating these drives, the choice depends on workload characteristics:

• Surveillance and video analytics: SkyHawk AI's ImagePerfect AI firmware and video optimization make it the logical choice
• Multi-drive NAS environments: IronWolf Pro's RV sensors and RAID management justify the modest price premium
• Data center or power-sensitive applications: Exos provides efficiency and hyperscaler-proven reliability

The pricing structure reflects these value propositions, with the consumer-focused SkyHawk AI at $699.99, the NAS-oriented IronWolf Pro at $729.99, and the data center Exos at $849.99. All three represent significant capacity per dollar improvements over previous generations, enabling archival strategies and data retention policies that were previously cost-prohibitive.

Seagate's simultaneous release across three product lines demonstrates a strategy to address multiple market segments with a common capacity milestone, allowing buyers to select the specific feature set matching their use case while standardizing on 32 TB of storage.