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takyon writes:

AnandTech interviewed Mark Re, SVP and Chief Technology Officer of Seagate, to talk about plans for upcoming hard disk drive (HDD) technologies.

Although shingled magnetic recording (SMR) lowers write speeds, a number of techniques help reduce the impact, such as banding together SMR tracks into certain zones with perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) zones covering the rest of the drive rather than shingling, or adding more SLC NAND and DRAM cache. Seagate will be expanding its use of SMR to increase density in client drives, not just "cold storage" drives, but will be using partial SMR/partial PMR and caching in order to mitigate write performance issues.

For the moment, Seagate won't be using helium outside of products for capacity-demanding datacenter customers (such as the Seagate Enterprise Capacity 10 TB HDD). The company can reduce fluid flow forces inside air-filled HDDs using purely mechanical solutions. On the other hand, Western Digital has introduced helium-filled drives aimed at consumers and has a marketing name for its technology (HelioSeal).

[Continues...]

takyon writes:

When will the HAMR drop? Supposedly in late 2018:

Seagate last week made two rather important announcements regarding its current and upcoming hard drives. First, the company said that it had shipped 35 million HDDs based on shingled magnetic recording (SMR) technology. Second, the manufacturer confirmed plans to launch commercial hard drives based on its heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) technology by the end of 2018, the first time the company set a precise launch timeframe for such HDDs.

[...] This is not the first time that Seagate has made a HAMR-related announcement, but this is the first time when the company has set a particular launch timeframe for such drives. Previously, Seagate has implied that the first HAMR-based HDDs would feature a capacity of 16 TB, which is a significant increase from 12 TB hard drives due to be released in the coming weeks. Given the fact that data centers cry out for high-capacity drives, it is inevitable that HAMR-based HDDs with increased performance and higher capacities will be in high demand. Keeping in mind that late 2018 (by "late" companies usually mean the fourth quarter) is over a year away, Seagate is not sharing details about experimental deployments of HAMR-based HDDs that may be planned for 2017/early 2018.

An upcoming Western Digital 14 TB 3.5" HDD will store 1.75 TB per platter.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Western Digital is planning to use Microwave Assisted Magnetic Recording (MAMR) instead of Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR) to produce hard drives with capacities of up to 40 terabytes by 2025:

WD has selected MAMR (Microwave Assisted Magnetic Recording) as its new HDD recording technology, which the company claims can enable up to 40TB HDDs by 2025. WD's rapid transition to MAMR is somewhat surprising, but the technology has been in development for nearly a decade. It certainly stands in contrast to Seagate's plans for using the laser-assisted HAMR (Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording) as the route to higher storage density.

The transition to the new recording process isn't immediate, but WD plans to have initial products shipping by 2019, and it had working demo models this week at its event in San Jose. The improved recording technology is needed to keep HDDs cost-competitive with the surging SSDs, but economics dictate that SSDs will never replace HDDs entirely, especially as the volume of data continues to grow exponentially; WD predicts that HDDs will account for ~90% of data center storage in 2020.

The technology announcement reportedly took the storage industry by surprise and MAMR doesn't have the same issues that have delayed HAMR:

WD pointed out that MAMR requires absolutely no external heating of the media that could lead to reliability issues. The temperature profiles of MAMR HDDs (both platters and drive temperature itself) are expected to be similar to those of the current generation HDDs. It was indicated that the MAMR drives would meet all current data center reliability requirements.

Based on the description of the operation of MAMR, it is a no-brainer that HAMR has no future in its current form. Almost all hard drive industry players have a lot more patents on HAMR compared to MAMR. It remains to be seen if the intellectual property created on the HAMR side is put to use elsewhere.

Will we have 100 TB by 2032?

Also at BBC, PetaPixel, and Engadget. WD Technology Brief.

Previously: AnandTech Interview With Seagate's CTO: New HDD Technologies Coming
Seagate HAMR Hard Drives Coming in a Year and a Half
Glass Substrate Could Enable Hard Drives With 12 Platters

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Western Digital recently announced plans to use Microwave Assisted Magnetic Recording (MAMR) to build its next generation of hard disk drives instead of Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR). WD promised that initial drives will ship in 2019, with 40 terabyte drives available by 2025.

In response, Seagate has reiterated its plans to produce HAMR hard disk drives in the near future. The company says that its first HAMR drives will ship around 2018-2019 (40,000 have already been built and are being tested by leading customers), at capacities of 16 TB or more. From there, Seagate expects to develop drives storing around 50 TB "early next decade", and eventually drives with capacities of up to 100 TB by combining HAMR with bit-patterned media and two-dimensional magnetic recording (PDF):

HDD technology has become somewhat boring. Innovation has slowed, but that's largely because we've reached the limits of PMR (Perpendicular Magnetic Recording), which is the key underlying HDD recording technology. Over the last two years, we've seen a few interesting new technologies that let us cram more bits into the same old 3.5" HDD, such as SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording). Unfortunately, the new tech comes with slower performance and often requires radical system changes if you want to unlock the full performance. That isn't worth the small capacity improvement unless you're deploying tens of thousands of HDDs.

[...] WD's MAMR relies largely upon proven technologies, which is a plus, but Seagate claimed that it's already producing the more exotic HAMR drives on the same production lines as its existing PMR-based drives. It also said that it has already built a strong supply chain for the new materials.

Both WD and Seagate have solid arguments for their chosen technologies, but the market will determine the winner. Both technologies will undoubtedly provide similar characteristics to today's HDDs, such as endurance, reliability, performance, and power specifications, so cost will be the true differentiator. As always, cheap and good enough will win. The HDD industry settled on PMR recording in 2005, and all three big vendors continue to use the same underlying technology. The move to two different technologies should make for a more exciting HDD future. Seagate plans to provide an update on its progress in early 2018.

Previously: AnandTech Interview With Seagate's CTO: New HDD Technologies Coming
Seagate HAMR Hard Drives Coming in a Year and a Half
Glass Substrate Could Enable Hard Drives With 12 Platters

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Toshiba plans to boost its hard drive capacities by using Microwave-Assisted Magnetic Recording rather than Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording. The company could use the technology to produce an ~18 terabyte hard drive:

Toshiba, like Western Digital, is going to use Microwave-Assisted Magnetic Recording (MAMR) to escape the inability of current PMR tech to go beyond 15-16TB disk drive capacity. [...] Seagate has chosen to [increase capacities] using heat (Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording or HAMR). Proponents of the MAMR approach say HAMR stresses the disk surface and read:write heads rendering the disk unreliable in the long-term. Seagate disputes this and has demonstrated long life HAMR read:write heads.

Western Digital has chosen MAMR for its future technology and now we know Toshiba is doing the same.

[...] MAMR uses 20 - 40GHZ frequencies and the [Spin Torque Oscillator (STO)] bombards a bit area with a circular AC microwave field, lowering its coercivity and enabling the bit value to be written (magnetic polarity changed as desired.)

It is reckoned that MAMR could lead to 4Tbit/in² areal densities, beyond the 700 to 1,000Gbit/in² used currently, and leading to 40TB drives.

Related: Western Digital to Use Microwave Assisted Magnetic Recording to Produce 40 TB HDDs by 2025
Seagate to Stay the Course With HAMR HDDs, Plans 20 TB by 2020, ~50 TB Before 2025
Seagate Plans 36 TB HAMR HDDs by 2022, 48 TB by 2024
Seagate Starts to Test 16 TB HAMR (Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording) Hard Drives

Original Submission

takyon writes:

State of the Union: Seagate's HAMR Hard Drives, Dual-Actuator Mach2, and 24 TB HDDs on Track

Seagate this week reiterated that the company is on track to launch two crucially important technologies later this calendar year. Firstly, the company plans to start ramping up its 16 TB hard drives featuring heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) technology in 1H 2019. Secondly, the manufacturer intends to launch its first 14 TB HDDs featuring two actuators, up to 500 MB/s sequential read speed, and up to 160 IOPS later this year. Also, the company has stated that it is already testing its next iteration of HAMR that will enable hard drives with capacities up to 24 TB.

[...] HAMR (Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording) is something that Seagate has been working on for over a decade and this year it will finally hit mass production. Among other things, the HAMR technology posed two major challenges that Seagate had to solve. The first one is media itself that can handle a 450°C local heat (made using a laser with an 810 nm wavelength and a 20 mW power) without degrading over time. The second one is a writer with a near-field optical transducer (NFT) that heats the media and which also has to work without flaws for up to a decade or longer. Seagate has developed appropriate media and its writers can handle up to 4 PB per head data transfers, which is more than sufficient for modern enterprise/datacenter HDDs (that are rated for a 550 TB workload a year). In fact, the company says that not only its internally developed media and heads for HAMR HDDs meet datacenter requirements, but so do components designed externally as well.

[...] While Seagate is gearing up to launch its Exos 16 TB HDDs officially in the coming weeks or months, the company promises that its HAMR technology will enable it to release hard drives featuring ~18 TB ~ 20 TB or even higher capacities sometime next year. Furthermore, Seagate has already tested tech that will be used for 24 TB HDDs.

takyon writes:

Seagate: 100TB HDDs Due in 2030, Multi-Actuator Drives to Become Common

Seagate is on track to deliver ~50TB hard disk drives by 2026, ~100TB HDDs by 2030, and 120TB+ units early next decade, according to the company's recently revealed product and technology roadmaps. To hit capacity targets, Seagate will have to adopt new magnetic recording technologies. To ensure the high performance of its future drives, the company plans to leverage its multi-actuator technology more broadly. This tech doubles the performance of its hard drives, and it could become a standard feature on some of the company's product lines.

[...] Today's [heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR)] media is expected to enable drives featuring 80TB ~ 100TB capacity, according to developers. But, for 3.5-inch HDDs with a ~105TB capacity and 5 ~ 7Tb/in² areal density, new ordered-granular magnetic films will be needed as grains will get very small and tracks will get very narrow. But ordered-granular media is expected to be a relatively short stop before 'fully' bit patterned media (BPM) technology comes into play with an 8Tb/inch² areal density.

[...] A straightforward way to increase the [input/output operations per second (IOPS)]-per-TB performance of an HDD is to use more than one actuator with read/write heads, and this is exactly what Seagate is set to do. Using two actuators instead of one can almost double throughput as well as IOPS-per-TB performance, which is tremendously important for data centers. Furthermore, doubling the number of actuators also halves the time Seagate needs to test a drive before shipping, as it is faster to inspect eight or nine platters using two independent actuators, which lowers costs.

Previously: Western Digital to Use Microwave Assisted Magnetic Recording to Produce 40 TB HDDs by 2025
Seagate to Stay the Course With HAMR HDDs, Plans 20 TB by 2020, ~50 TB Before 2025
Seagate Plans 36 TB HAMR HDDs by 2022, 48 TB by 2024

Related: Toshiba Announces 16 TB and 18 TB Microwave-Assisted Magnetic Recording (MAMR) Hard Drives

Original Submission