Everyone assumes SSDs will win the next storage war (but they are secretly losing to old tech)
The first 1GB hard drive was released by IBM in 1980. The IBM 3380 Direct Access Storage Device (DASD) was enormous by today's standards, weighing about 64lbs and costing ~$50,000. We then waited 27 years for the first 1TB hard drive, the Deskstar 7K1000 from Hitachi, which came out in 2007.
Unlike the IBM 3380, which featured a unique form factor and was reserved for the enterprise market, the Deskstar 7K1000 was a standard 3.5-inch HDD you could install in your own PC. Going by this logic, we would get the first 1PB (petabyte, or 1,000 terabytes) storage device sometime in the mid-2030s.
The pace of storage media development, however, is much faster. Instead of waiting almost 10 more years for a 1PB storage device, we might get one before the end of the current decade.
Hard drives won't reach 1000TB capacity anytime soon
Too many spinning platters
When the 1PB drive does arrive, it most likely won't use spinning platters. The largest HDD currently on the market is the 36TB Exos M from Seagate, which costs around $800 per drive. While it targets data centers, it's still a standard 3.5-inch SATA HDD you can use in any PC that supports 3.5-inch drives.
Looking ahead, Seagate has been working to increase the capacity of individual platters, with current technology allowing up to 6.9TB per platter. This could enable a 69TB hard drive (10 platters of 6.9TB each) before 2030. Considering that the company is also researching 15TB and higher capacity platters, which are slated for the early 2030s, we could get the first 1TB HDD before the end of the next decade.
BS Teh, Seagate's chief commercial officer, told CNBC that the company should launch a 100TB hard drive as early as 2030, which is just what the doctor ordered for storage-ravenous AI data centers .
What's interesting is that when we finally do get a petabyte-class hard drive, it will likely still use the familiar 3.5-inch form factor and a standard interface like SATA, meaning it could, in theory, slot into most PCs that support 3.5-inch drives. Even if such a drive ends up using the SAS interface instead, you could still make it work with an interface card or enclosure.
On the other hand, we might get the first 1000TB SSD before the end of the decade
But only for data centers
KIOXIA
Over on the flash storage side of the street, things look much brighter when it comes to 1PB SSDs. At the moment, the largest commercially available drives top out at 122.88TB. If you have a server rack compatible with Enterprise and Data Center SSD Form Factor (EDSFF) SSDs, you can get one for around $40,000 as of this writing.
The next generation of enterprise SSDs , packing around a quarter of a petabyte, is just around the corner. Kioxia announced its 245.76TB LC9 SSD in August 2025, with the drive expected to hit the market sometime in 2026. It uses the EDSFF E3.L form factor, which was designed to support higher capacities. SanDisk also announced a similar 256TB SSD, which should hit the market in 2026 as well.
1PB SSDs are also on the horizon. A new EDSFF form factor, dubbed E2, is being developed to make such capacities feasible. Current EDSFF designs are starting to hit practical limits in terms of how many NAND packages they can house, so the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) and the Open Compute Project (OCP)—which include major players like Seagate, Micron, Samsung, and SanDisk—have been working on the E2 design.
The E2 form factor measures 200mm in length, 76mm in height, and 9.5mm in thickness, allowing it to house dozens of NAND packages alongside the controller and supporting components. Pure Storage unveiled a prototype E2 SSD in May 2025 with approximately 300 TB of capacity.
Considering the pace of development, we'll likely see a 1PB SSD well before a 1PB HDD. Kioxia and SanDisk are expected to bring ~245TB/256TB drives to market this year, while SanDisk has also outlined plans for a 512TB SSD later in the decade. A 1PB SSD is already on the roadmap, though without a firm release date. Based on current trends, it wouldn't be surprising to see it arrive before 2030.
Whenever it arrives, the first 1PB drive will be data center-exclusive for a good while
Even if a 1PB SSD shows up before 2030, it will almost certainly use a data center–focused form factor that isn't compatible with standard PCs, which rely on M.2 drives. As of now, the largest M.2 SSD packs 16TB of storage, and it can be yours for an eye-watering $16,000.
While we may see a 1PB SSD in just a few years, you shouldn't keep your hopes up for a similarly sized consumer SSD anytime soon. If you ask me, I wouldn't be surprised if we get the first 1PB hard drive before we see a 1PB SSD compatible with a typical desktop PC. So, when it comes to getting a 1,000TB drive that'll actually fit inside your PC, it'll likely happen in the mid-2030s at the earliest.
