Analysts, working for IHS iSuppli, a global leader in market intelligence, expect hard drive capacities to at least double by year 2016.
The growth in hard drive capacity will be fueled by the implementation of more and more advanced recording technologies along with the need to use applications working with more and more data.
The expectation is also supported by the fact that hard drives reached 744 Gbit/sq.in. of average areal density in 2011, in 2012 they will reach 780 Gbit/sq.in, in a year or two they will reach 900 Gbit/sq.in. and in 2016 they are expected to hit 1800 Gbit/sq.in. The average areal density increase in this period amounts to 19%.
The current highest capacity hard drive can store 4 TB of data but there’s no information on when higher capacity drives will be released.
Source: IXBT.com