Seagate Announces First Customer Samples Of 8 Terabyte Hard Drive During...

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paul
50.25% (Neutral)
Member Topic Starter

2014-07-20T11:12:43Z

Overall Seagate Technology closed out its fiscal year (ended June 27, 2014) in good shape. The drive maker reported fourth quarter revenue of $3.3 billion, which was enough to pull a healthy profit of $320 million along with diluted earnings per share of $0.95. It also generated around $577 million in operating cash flow and returned a sizable $166 million to shareholders in the form of dividends and share redemptions.

For its full fiscal year 2014, Seagate returned a whopping $2.5 billion to shareholders and raised $1.8 billion in investment grade debt. What this all boils down to is that Seagate found itself on strong footing and appears to be in fantastic shape moving forward.

"Throughout fiscal year 2014, Seagate delivered strong financial and operational performance and returned significant value to shareholders. We made strategic investments in our technology portfolio, which enabled us to continue to innovate into higher capacity and power efficient storage solutions, and expanding our capabilities to serve a broader storage customer base in the future through new cloud systems and solutions and flash technology for connected storage," said Steve Luczo, Seagate’s chairman and chief executive officer.

Speaking of higher capacity solutions, Luczo coyly revealed during a conference call that Seagate has begun shipping its first batch of 8TB capacity hard drives to customers.

"We have also delivered 8TB customer development units to major customers and cloud service providers and the initial customer feedback has been very positive," Luczo said.

Luczo didn't drop any hints as to what technology is behind Seagate's 8TB hard drive, though we can surmise that the company either went with more platters or with a Helium-filled solution.

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ThomasTaege
50.25% (Neutral)
Member

2014-07-20T14:21:15Z

It's good to see capacity still growing as the need for space keeps growing.

BruceRegael
50.25% (Neutral)
Member

2014-07-20T15:27:21Z

It's kind of sad. About 5 years ago we were all orgasmic over the future of HDD's. My how times have changed. I never would have thought of sacrificing capacity for speed at a demanding price tag, but I did and never looked back. I'm assuming they're finally starting to break the 1TB increments every couple years to try and gain momentum again.

With 3D NAND it's only a matter of time before 2TB SSD's come out and break the $500 barrier. Thanks to Samsung 1TB is already there. Really wish the remaining HDD guys luck in the future because there was a time when SMR/HAMR/BPM was very interesting.

KyleReyes
50.25% (Neutral)
Member

2014-07-20T20:54:17Z

I'm still using a 240gb ssd, and I haven't filled it...

infinityzen1
50.25% (Neutral)
Member

2014-07-21T00:24:52Z

I actually have several of their 6TB consumer drives in my NAS. A little less than 5c a GB for the density was worth it, even though 4TB drives are a little cheaper (3.75~4c a GB).

AllenJun
50.25% (Neutral)
Member

2014-07-21T00:49:13Z

I think that Helium-filled thing is really cool. I still think 1TB is crazy large. Its what I'm running along my 256GB SSD. Can you guys imagine cheap 8TB SSD? Maybe in 2020! It should exist by then, but I'm not sure it'll be cheap. Only time will tell.

infinityzen1
50.25% (Neutral)
Member

2014-07-21T07:11:47Z

I can't see 8TB being cheap. You can get a quality 4TB today for around $150. A 6TB cost around $300. So you are looking at something like $500+ for a 8TB most likely. Until the next tech to increase platter density becomes common, the HDD companies have to go to extreme measures to produce the bigger drives.

ThomasTaege
50.25% (Neutral)
Member

2014-07-21T15:08:35Z

These initial releases are always going to be expensive and have less than perfect performance. It's a measure to show how they are growing. Prices will come down and quality will go up just like it always does with technology.

thabusdriv3r
50.25% (Neutral)
Member

2014-07-21T19:17:12Z

8TB, why? Unless your starting your own electronics business or software company, I don't see the point. What's even more scary is that you actually fill that 8TB and then it crashes due to HDDs being that large so early in development. I'd wait a couple years or sooner before I start looking into HDDs that huge. Remember when 8GB was huge, lolz.

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