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As operators of cloud datacenters need more storage capacity, higher capacity HDDs are being developed. As data hoarders need more capacity, higher capacity HDDs are needed. Last week Western Digital introduced its new Utrastar DC HC650 20 TB drives - hitting a new barrier in rotating data.
The drives feature shingled magnetic recording (SMR) technology, which layers data on top of another much like a shingled roof, and therefore is designed primarily for write once read many (WORM) applications (e.g., content delivery services). Western Digital's SMR hard drives are host managed, so they will be available only to customers with appropriate software.
Western Digital's Utrastar DC HC650 20 TB is based on the company's all-new nine-platter helium-sealed enterprise-class platform, a first for the company. The new 3.5-inch hard drives feature a 7200 RPM spindle speed and will be available with a SATA 6 Gbps or SAS 12 Gbps interface depending on the SKU. Since the product is not expected to be available immediately, the manufacturer does not disclose all of its specifications just yet, but has stated that key customers are already in the loop.
(Score: 2) by Chocolate on Thursday September 12 2019, @01:10PM (5 children)
Never bought another Western Digital. Two of them died.
Bit-choco-coin anyone?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 12 2019, @01:26PM (2 children)
Nice anecdote. You just confirmed you don't know how the industry works.
(Score: 2) by Chocolate on Thursday September 12 2019, @11:23PM (1 child)
Two died in a short time. In the middle of a couple of decades of buying hard drives and knowing hundreds of people who buy them. Yes, drives die. The Deskstar aka Deathstar was notorious for just dying.
http://www.silent11.com/blog/archives/2005/05/imb-deskstar-deathstar-75-gxp.html [silent11.com]
https://goughlui.com/2013/03/01/hard-drive-disassembly-the-ibm-deathstar/ [goughlui.com]
Perhaps this was before your time.
Nice reply. You just proved that you do not know your history, and cannot or will not execute a basic search for information.
Bit-choco-coin anyone?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 13 2019, @04:57AM
Of course I know the history. The problem is that drive failures from over a decade ago should not cause you to boycott WD today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ST3000DM001 [wikipedia.org]
Plenty of people swear they will never use a WD or Seagate drive again because MUH DRIVE FAILURES, and they are dumb for saying so. Specific models have issues that do not carry over to later models.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 12 2019, @06:12PM (1 child)
Oh those were the days, when IBM Deskstar got the nickname of "Deathstar" for a reason. However, if you look at the statistics now, HGST has had some of the best reliability statistics in the industry for quite some time. Western Digital and Toshiba is somewhere in the middle-high range. It is currently Seagate that is trying to pull themselves out of the reliability hole. However, all manufacturers are now below 1.5% in their warranted period and under 3% for 5 years and around 8% for 10 years on "desktop" drives. Laptop drives have higher failure rates and enterprise drives have lower ones.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 13 2019, @04:31AM
Several friends of mine back then worked in local computer stores. The return rate / failure rate was so bad they stopped ordering them switching to Seagate and other brands. Seagate had a bad reputation for some of its drive types, but nothing like the Deathstar.
You expected minimum quality for low priced consumer gear, but not for slews of hardware to die like that. DOA? Sure. 12 month 20% failure rates? OK. "Expect this device to suddenly not work probability at 70%"? No.