HAMR is the next significant innovation to increase “areal density”—the amount of data stored on a disk. HAMR will fuel hard drive product development and growth through the next decade.

HAMR uses this property of magnetic materials to its advantage. A tiny laser within the hard drive temporarily spot-heats the area being written, so that it briefly reaches a temperature where the …

Feb 3, 2026 · HAMR technology solves the magnetic recording trilemma by using laser heating to temporarily reduce media anisotropy, enabling smaller bit sizes and higher storage densities.

Mar 12, 2026 · HAMR uses a tiny laser to heat magnetic storage material, enabling far denser hard drives than traditional methods allow.

Mar 6, 2026 · HAMR technology uses a laser diode embedded in the drive's read/write heads to quickly heat a small spot on the recording platter.

Jul 1, 2024 · That’s the challenge HAMR technology solves. HAMR uses a small laser diode attached to each recording head to heat a tiny spot on the disk, enabling the recording head to alter the magnetic …

Sep 29, 2025 · This spot-heating lets HAMR drives use ultra-hard magnetic alloys often iron-platinum on a specialized glass substrate and write data in much smaller areas than previously possible. In …

Feb 14, 2025 · Western Digital's first HAMR-based HDDs will be introduced sometime in 2026, with a 36TB capacity for conventional magnetic recording (CMR) and a 44TB capacity for shingled …

Mar 21, 2025 · HAMR uses a small laser to heat the disk material during the writing process to enable higher data density. This heating temporarily reduces the coercivity of the disk material, enabling the …

From PMR to SMR to HAMR By using Perpendicular Magnetic Recording (PMR), we were able to add a soft underlayer on the media and efectively put the media in the “gap” of the writer where the field is …