Seagate Simplifies High-Capacity Storage Scaling for AI and Cloud Infrastructure

Microsoft Azure Storage completed qualification of the Broadcom adapter with Seagate’s HAMR + SMR technology.

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New interoperability milestone simplifies high-capacity storage expansion, with Microsoft Azure providing a hyperscale qualification proof point

SINGAPORE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Seagate Technology (NASDAQ: STX) today announced a new interoperability milestone designed to simplify high-capacity storage expansion as AI and cloud workloads drive continued data growth.

Seagate Mozaic™ drives, based on heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) and configured with shingled magnetic recording (SMR), are the first and only SMR drives added to Broadcom's approved vendor list for its host bus adapter (HBA), which connects servers to storage and enables data centers to deploy and manage large fleets of hard drives.

Microsoft Azure Storage has completed qualification of the Broadcom HBA with Seagate HAMR + SMR technology, providing a real-world proof point for the configuration at hyperscale.

AI and Cloud Growth Puts New Demands on Data Infrastructure

AI and cloud workloads are driving continued data growth, increasing the need for storage infrastructure that can scale efficiently. For large-scale data centers, that means not only adding higher-capacity drives, but efficiently connecting, managing and scaling large hard drive fleets.

“High-capacity storage innovation delivers the greatest value when customers put that capacity to work efficiently,” said Jason Feist, Senior Vice President, Cloud Business. “By pairing Seagate HAMR + SMR storage technology with Broadcom’s connectivity infrastructure, we’re helping make high-capacity SMR storage more accessible and easier to deploy as AI and cloud data demands grow.”

Expanding Access to High-Capacity SMR

Broadcom's HBA provides the communication path between servers and storage devices, allowing large numbers of hard drives to be connected, addressed and managed by the host system.

“Expanding HBA support for Seagate SMR technology gives more customers a straightforward path to integrate and manage high-capacity hard drive fleets,” said Jas Tremblay, Vice President and General Manager Data Center Solutions Group at Broadcom. “It’s an important step toward making HAMR + SMR storage easier to implement across large-scale environments as storage requirements continue to grow.”

Advancing Capacity for Data-Intensive Workloads

Seagate's Mozaic platform leverages HAMR technology and enables continued increases in storage density and drive capacity. HAMR-based Mozaic drives can also be configured with SMR technology, which organizes data tracks more densely to increase usable capacity for appropriate workloads.

“At hyperscale, storage infrastructure has to meet demanding requirements for interoperability, manageability and infrastructure efficiency at scale,” said Pablo Ziperovich, general manager, Azure Memory and Storage Center of Excellence at Microsoft. “Microsoft Azure’s joint validation and qualification of Seagate and Broadcom’s SMR configuration demonstrates how these technologies can work together across large data center deployments, enabling greater storage density at a similar cost and power envelope.”

About Seagate Technology

Seagate (NASDAQ: STX) is a pioneer in mass-capacity data storage, accelerating ability to harness the full value of data. Our portfolio of advanced storage solutions helps hyperscale cloud providers, enterprises, and consumers protect, create, and manage the data that powers their transformation and growth. For more than 45 years, Seagate has driven breakthrough innovations that bring sustainable, high-performance storage to the world at-scale. Learn more at www.seagate.com, and follow us on LinkedIn, YouTube, X and Facebook.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20261026057161/en/

Erin.Lundberg@edelman.com

Source: Seagate Technology Holdings plc

Key Terms

hamr technical

A data storage technology that uses short, intense heat to temporarily make tiny spots on a disk easier to magnetize, allowing many more bits to fit in the same physical space. Think of it as briefly warming a frozen surface so a stamp leaves a clearer, smaller impression; that higher packing density can lower cost per gigabyte and enable more compact, higher-capacity drives. Investors care because wider adoption can boost demand for drive makers, component suppliers and data-center operators while influencing pricing and margins across the storage industry.

host bus adapter (hba) technical

A host bus adapter (HBA) is a hardware interface—typically a card or built-in controller—that connects a computer (the host) to external storage or storage networks and translates between the host’s internal bus and the storage protocol (for example, Fibre Channel, SAS or SATA). An HBA handles low-level input/output tasks, offloads protocol processing from the CPU, and presents remote storage devices or logical units to the operating system through drivers and firmware; it is distinct from a general-purpose network interface card (NIC) because it implements storage-specific protocols and management functions.