"Seagate is preparing the first commercial hard disks capable of storing one trillion bits of data per square inch on its platters using a technology called heat assisted magnetic recording (HAMR). That means 3.5-inch hard drives with capacities of 6 terabytes could be just around the corner—and 60-terabyte drives are that much closer to becoming a reality.

Seagate has been working with HAMR for over a decade, originally predicting storage densities of "as much as 50 terabits per square inch" when it demonstrated the technology for the first time in 2002. HAMR uses a combination of a laser and magnetic write heads that allows bits of storage to be packed more tightly together on a disk platter..."