Toshiba today announced the next generation of its Mx11 series of high-capacity enterprise hard drives. The MG11 series features conventional magnetic recording (CMR) technology, with a maximum capacity of 24TB, while the MA series features stacked magnetic recording (SMR) technology, offering up to 28TB.

Toshiba's MG11 series leverages CMR technology, alongside Toshiba's second-generation Magnetic Energy Controlled Microwave-Assisted Magnetic Recording (FC-MAMR) technology. These drives are available in capacities of 14TB, 16TB, 18TB, 20TB, 22TB, and 24TB, with up to 10 disks packaged per drive and a maximum single-disk capacity of 2.4TB.

The drives operate at 7200 RPM and include up to 1GB of cache. They support both SATA 6Gbps and SAS 12Gbps interfaces and offer a maximum stable data transfer rate of 295MB/s, which is approximately 9% higher than the previous generation. Additionally, SIE and SED encryption are optional.

Designed for 24/7 continuous operation, these drives have a mean time between failures (MTBF) of 2.5 million hours, an annual maximum write capacity of 550TB, and an annual failure rate of 0.35%.

The Toshiba MA11 series is available in 28TB and 27TB variants, with up to 10 disks per drive and achieving a single-disk capacity of 2.8TB. However, it falls short compared to Seagate's heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) technology, which has exceeded 3TB per disk.

Few other details have been released about the MA11 series, except that it features a SATA 6Gbps interface and optional SED encryption.

The MG11 series will begin sampling this month, with the MA11 series expected in Q4.