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takyon writes:

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.

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