We had hoped to see Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording sometime in 2017 but that goal has proved to be optimistic and 2018 is now the current expectation for its arrival.  This technology will allow storage densities higher than 1.5 Tb/in2 but is not quite ready for primetime at the moment.  Prototypes do exist and some are being sent to customers to test the reliability and performance of drives in real life test scenarios.  The drives will be slower than flash based storage of course, however when it comes to storage density spinning rust still holds the crown and will continue to do so for some time.  You can refresh yourself on the technology by following the links in this post and read more about the delays over at Slashdot.

"Unfortunately the hard disk drive industry is not ready to go live with Heat-assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR). The technology is yet not reliable enough for mass production. Over the years, producers of hard drives, platters and recording heads have revealed various possible timeframes for commercial availability of drives with HAMR technology. Their predictions were not accurate."

Here is some more Tech News from around the web:

Tech Talk