- Seagate quietly places its highest capacity hard drive into regular retail circulation
- A 32TB hard drive is now sold outside of controlled enterprise distribution channels
- Japan became the first confirmed market for the retail sale of Seagate 32TB hard drives
A 32TB Seagate hard drive appeared on Japanese retail channels, without any prior public announcement from the company.
The model, designated ST32000NT000, was captured and listed by retailers in Akihabara, confirming its availability starting December 27, 2025.
With a list price of 138,160 yen (approximately $887), the drive is both the highest capacity hard drive available to the consumer and one of the most expensive NAS-oriented HDDs currently sold in stores.
Seagate's largest hard drive hits retail
This sighting represents the first confirmed case of a 32TB hard drive being offered directly at retail rather than through controlled enterprise supply chains.
The ST32000NT000 is part of Seagate's IronWolf Pro line, which is designed for continuous operation in professional and enterprise NAS environments.
This distinguishes it from the company's Exos series, which has historically been used to feature its higher capacity drives.
Seagate introduced a 30TB Exos model almost two years ago and followed it up with a 32TB Exos M drive about a year later.
The IronWolf Pro brand suggests a shift toward extreme capacity availability outside of strictly data center-focused product lines.
Technically, the drive follows design parameters familiar for high-capacity 3.5-inch hard drives.
It uses a SATA 6 Gb/s interface and runs at a rotational speed of 7200 RPM, backed by a 512 MB cache.
Seagate lists a maximum sustained transfer speed of 285 MB/s, with an average operating power consumption of 8.3 watts.
These features align closely with existing high-capacity NAS drives, indicating that the main advancement here is storage density rather than raw performance gains.
The quiet launch and premium pricing means limited availability and a narrow target audience.
This launch feels less like a broad consumer push and more like a cautious expansion of high-density storage to NAS-focused product levels.
Seagate has likely moved its higher-capacity mechanical storage into standard sales channels without accompanying technical or marketing briefings.
It remains to be seen if this device will be available for purchase outside of Japan; We will be attentive in the future.
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