Western Digital is shipping 12 TB helium-filled hard disk drives containing eight 1.5 TB platters:
Western Digital on Wednesday announced that it had begun to ship its HGST Ultrastar He12 hard drives with 12 TB of capacity. The HDDs are the first drives to employ eight platters, so the fact that Western Digital is now shipping them is important not only for its datacenter customers who need massive storage capacities, but also because the drive represents a significant step forward from a technology point of view.
The HGST Ultrastar He12 is based on Western Digital's fourth-generation HelioSeal technology, which uses eight perpendicular magnetic recording platters with 1.5 TB capacity each. To add the eighth platter, Western Digital had to redesign internal components of its HDDs (including arms and heads) significantly. In addition, the company increased areal density of the platters, which improved the sequential read/write performance of the new hard drives. In particular, Western Digital claims that the HGST Ultrastar He12 has a sustained transfer rate of 255 MB/s, an average latency of 4.16 ms, as well as an average seek time of around 8 ms.
Previously: Western Digital Announces 12-14 TB Hard Drives and an 8 TB SSD
Seagate's 12 TB HDDs Are in Use, and 16 TB is Planned for 2018
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Western Digital has announced a 12 terabyte helium-filled hard disk drive, as well as an upcoming 14 TB shingled magnetic recording HDD. The 3.5" 12 TB drive contains a whopping eight 1.5 TB platters, and does not use shingling:
HGST's Ultrastar He12 HDDs use speedy PMR (Perpendicular Magnetic Recording) technology in tandem with eight platters to provide a beefy 12TB of capacity. The 7,200-RPM HDD provides solid performance measurements of 243 MiB/s of sustained sequential performance and 390/186 read/write IOPS at QD32. The helium-infused HelioSeal design allows the drive to scale to eight platters and provides a 2.5 million hour MTBF. [...] The hits don't stop at 12TB; the company also has a 14TB SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording) HDD on its immediate roadmap.
WD also announced an Ultrastar 8TB SN200 SSD, and confirmed that it is working on QLC NAND SSDs that store four bits per cell. Micron also announced an 8 TB (7680 GB) SSD this week.
Also at The Register.
Seagate claims that it has had 12 terabyte hard disk drives "in the field" for "several quarters", and that 14 TB and 16 TB drives are coming soon. The company has a goal of producing 20 TB hard drives by 2020:
The enterprise is also moving en masse to speedy SSDs for high-performance workloads, which recently led the company to halt further development of 15K HDDs. Many analysts opine that 10K HDDs are next on the chopping block. In response, Seagate shifted its production might to more lucrative high-capacity enterprise HDDs, which now account for 37% of its revenue, to leverage the shrinking HDD price-per-GB advantage over SSDs. Seagate recently closed its Suzhou, China manufacturing plant to reduce manufacturing costs, but it simultaneously increased its investments in other facilities to address the challenges of moving from six platters per drive to eight. The net effects of its maneuverings total $300 million in savings per year.
Seagate is essentially retreating into the high-capacity segment, and the company announced that its new 12TB HDDs have already been shipping to key customers for several quarters. Seagate CEO Steve Luczoalso noted that the company would offer 16TB drives within the next 12 to 18 months. Seagate's new high-capacity offerings are destined for data centers, NAS, DVRs, and a booming surveillance market.
Also at Ars Technica and The Verge.
Previously: Western Digital Announces 12-14 TB Hard Drives and an 8 TB SSD
Western Digital is now shipping 14 TB hard drives. The products use shingled magnetic recording (SMR), which can slow down re-writes:
Western Digital has started to ship its new HGST Ultrastar Hs14 hard drives, promoted as being suitable for cloud datacenters and for hyperscale developments. The capacity increase from its predecessor, the Ultrastar Ha10, from 10TB to 14 TB offers a significant performance improvement. The new 14 TB HDD is based on shingled magnetic recording technology, which is a system that naturally focuses more on sequential write performance. These drives will only be available with host management, which means it will not be available to general consumers, but only to select customers of HGST.
The HGST Ultrastar Hs14 relies on Western Digital's fourth-generation HelioSeal enterprise platform which integrates eight platters and features various internal components specially designed for such hard drives. The new helium-filled HDD has a 7200 RPM spindle speed, a 512 MB cache. and numerous enhancements when it comes to reliability and durability of the drive. As with other HGST enterprise-class HDDs, the Ultrastar Hs14 is rated for 2.5 million hours MTBF and comes with a five-year warranty.
Previously: Western Digital Announces 12-14 TB Hard Drives and an 8 TB SSD
Seagate's 12 TB HDDs Are in Use, and 16 TB is Planned for 2018
Western Digital Begins Shipping 12 TB Helium-Filled Drives with 8 Platters
Seagate Launches Consumer-Oriented 12 TB Drives
Western Digital to Use Microwave Assisted Magnetic Recording to Produce 40 TB HDDs by 2025
Seagate has launched three new 12 TB helium-filled hard disk drives containing eight perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) platters:
These are not the first 12TB drives in the market, as enterprise versions from both Seagate and Western Digital have been around for some time. However, Seagate is the first vendor to bring down the prices and ship 12TB drives in the consumer market.
From a hardware viewpoint, the three drives are similar to the Seagate Enterprise Capacity v7 drives launched in March 2017. All of them features eight PMR platters with a 923 Gb/in2 areal density in a sealed enclosure filled with helium. That said, the Barracuda Pro Compute, meant for desktop use, doesn't come with rotational vibration (RV) sensors or dual-plane motor balancing hardware. The RV sensors and the dual-plane balance / AgileArray features enable reliable performance in multi-drive enclosures. The other important differentiation aspects include firmware features, warranty / workload ratings, and value-added services like the Seagate Rescue Data Recovery.
Two of the drives come with 5 year warranties.
Previously: HGST Announces 10 Terabyte PMR Hard Drive
AnandTech Interview With Seagate's CTO: New HDD Technologies Coming
Seagate's 12 TB HDDs Are in Use, and 16 TB is Planned for 2018
Western Digital Begins Shipping 12 TB Helium-Filled Drives with 8 Platters
Seagate HAMR Hard Drives Coming in a Year and a Half
Glass Substrate Could Enable Hard Drives With 12 Platters
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 29 2017, @07:54AM
My main computer still has a 120GB parallel ata disk. It's starting to feel slowish and rather small but at least it's easy to back up.
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Saturday April 29 2017, @08:52AM (6 children)
How long does it take for the tiny Helium atoms to leak out and affect the function of the drive? The article mentions nothing about this nor general longevity expectactions.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Saturday April 29 2017, @08:59AM
Yeah that is why I'm avoiding them, hell I recently found some old 400Mb drives in a box at the shop and hooked them up...worked just fine. Many of my customers keep systems for a loong time under the "If it ain't broke" principle, I don't like the idea that the systems I would be selling them has an expiration date.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 29 2017, @09:09AM
> How long does it take for the tiny Helium atoms to leak out
Their first gen helium drives, back in 2013, were guaranteed 5 years without leaking,
Which is 1 year longer than the typical lifespan of a drive in a data-center.
And that's their target market.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 29 2017, @09:59AM
Planned Obsolescence [wikipedia.org]
At least Amazon would not be able to resell these as new [amazon.com] with over 50000 hours. [google.com]
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday April 29 2017, @02:09PM
I'll guess this will make harddisc rescue next to impossible?
Like this one:
Data Recovery: Hard Drive Platter Swap in Our Lab! [youtube.com]
(the action scene at 22:05)
I'm seeing a new use for those helium balloon fills used in entertainment parks provided they have the right isotope and is clean. Mass diffusion may create a problem as others pointed out. But I think it's generally just hydrogen that is really tricky in this aspect.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Saturday April 29 2017, @06:34PM (1 child)
How long does it take for the tiny Helium atoms to leak out
My first thought on reading the headline was a semi-sarcastic "What could possibly go wrong?"
Upon further reflection, I came up with a semi-serious "What could possibly go right with that approach?"
But, hey, they have been in the data storage r&d business for decades, so they know more about the situation than I.
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Sunday April 30 2017, @05:33AM
Yeah. Though unlike you and I, they don't want the drive to last longer than the warranty period.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 29 2017, @10:32AM
so, do they store a byte by writing one bit to each platter? that should help with transfer rates, right?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 29 2017, @07:29PM (2 children)
How much one of those things weigh? Piling on eight of these platters will correspondingly increase mechanical stress and affect its reliability.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 29 2017, @09:21PM (1 child)
Yeah but you forgot all that helium... /stupidjoke
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 30 2017, @05:50AM
I just realized it. they HAD to put in the 8th platter, otherwise the things would float away!