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Future Seagate HDDs will begin including two separate sets of actuator arms that can operate independently in order to double read/write speeds:
Seagate's multi-actuator technology is a simple concept, and the idea certainly isn't new. In fact, the company has already developed drives with multiple actuators in the past, but they weren't economically viable due to higher component costs.
Most HDDs read and write data to and from multiple platters. For instance, Seagate's largest drives wield up to 8 platters and 16 heads. The heads, which are connected to the end of an actuator arm assembly, read and write data from both sides of each platter.
Unfortunately, those 16 heads are all aligned on the same arm, which means they all move in unison. Simultaneously aligning all the heads on all the platters isn't possible because of the incredibly thin data tracks on the platters, so only one of the heads is actively reading or writing data at any given time. That limits read/write throughput and performance with randomly accessed data.
Seagate's new design uses two sets of actuator arms that operate independently. Each carries eight heads. That means the drive can read or write from two heads at once, provided they are attached to different actuator arms. The drive can respond to two commands in parallel and one head can read while another writes, or both can read or write simultaneously.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 20 2017, @10:46AM (1 child)
You make a good point that it /could/ lead to longer living drives on top of the better througput. Unfortunately I can't help but see this as a late in the game attempt by Seagate to remain relevant. If you care about perfoance in a drive you're likely picking a Samsung or Intel SSD over the lackluster Seagate hybrids.
This tech is seriously old. It was once used with 2 separate interfaces so you could deliver content to webservers through read-only arms. Pretty sure that died a quick death.
Conspiracy theory - "BONUS" they could set the SMART data however they like so you are only warned about a bad read/write element outside of warranty, as the failure can remain "hidden" for longer. **yay Seagate**
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Wednesday December 20 2017, @02:46PM
Not sure I would tie this so closely to Seagate. Once Seagate does something, WD is sure to follow, and vice versa. Even Toshiba still has skin in the game, miraculously.
WD/HGST moved to helium-filled drives, Seagate followed, and later Toshiba [anandtech.com]. Both companies had been working on it for years.
All three companies have moved past 5 platters and back into the territory of 7-9 platters. We could see 12 platters on a glass substrate [soylentnews.org] in 3.5".
Seagate is moving to HAMR, WD is moving to MAMR, which is similar.
Seagate is using shingles (although not in all drives), even with its disadvantages, and so is WD [storagereview.com].
Both companies are working on two-dimensional magnetic recording (TDMR), which should boost capacity by a few percent.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]