Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday January 10 2018, @10:22AM   Printer-friendly
from the never-enough-storage dept.

The Register asked Seagate's Director of Technology Strategy and Product Planning Jason Feist about the company's plans to use multi-actuator technology in upcoming hard disk drives. Seagate insists that the technology can double input/output operations per second (rather than increasing it by, for example, 1.8x), and says that customers have validated the concept:

Howard Marks, founder and chief scientist at Deep Storage Net said: "We've had drives with 2 positioners before (IBM 3380 - one set of heads were dedicated to inner tracks, the other to outer tracks). That was back in the day of linear voice coils so they came from opposite sides of the 14-inch platters."

He identifies a software issue with Seagate's multi-actuator single pivot design: "Most storage software including logical volume managers and file systems, are built with the knowledge that a disk drive can only have it's heads in one place at a time and their queuing logic may mismatch with the multipositioner logic." This means: "It may not double throughput for large I/Os."

It could get close though, as "I understand that Seagate is going to make these look like 2 logical drives via a driver. That should solve #1 above and let systems get 1.8-1.9X IOPS."

[...] El Reg: What are your ideas and thoughts about multi-actuator disk drives and the arguments for and against them?

Jason Feist: We are bullish on this technology. A number of key customers have validated the concept and are working closely with us on the development of the technology.

Hyperscale data center service-level agreements (SLAs) are a critical factor in defining storage deployment needs and designing next-generation technologies that efficiently support storage deployments. In order for TCO (total cost of ownership) to continue to improve, the IOPS of a disk drive need to increase along with the capacity increases we're enabling with new areal density advancements.

The small cost adder that is required for additional components to deliver this performance gain is a much more cost-effective solution than using additional drives/spindles. The hard drive and SSD have a strong relationship in a data center, and both are required to achieve capacity and performance requirements at scale.

The IOPS growth provided by Multi Actuator technology in disk drives enables this relationship to continue to scale into the future.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 10 2018, @10:40AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 10 2018, @10:40AM (#620424)

    I see... so you have no idea who I am, or what the true nature of my power is. I can experience. I can understand. I can see. I can see the future of your ass. Yes, I'm the Assteller!

    You're in your car, driving home. You feel that something is amiss, but you can't quite put your finger on what that might be. Then it hits you. Yes, it hits you. There's a new barber shop in town, but it's unlike any you've ever seen before. Indeed, it's a gay barber shop, where all the employees are gay. Finally your town has joined the 21st century. You decide to go immediately.

    Upon entering the gay barber shop, you notice that it's utterly devoid of people and it's strangely dark even though the lights are on, almost as if something is stealing the light from your surroundings. You proceed further until you notice an ominous picture on the wall. The picture depicts several ET dolls wearing blond wigs and lipstick, and even though it's just a picture, you can't help but feel as if they are staring at you.

    You become unsettled and try to leave, but then you suddenly fall to the ground on your back as if an invisible entity had pushed you down. You try to get up, but a car seat appears out of nowhere and your ass and legs get trapped under it. You can't move. You can't move even a single cheek. It's then that you notice that an ET doll is standing right next to you, smiling. Oh, yes, it's smiling, but it's an evil, ominous smile. Suddenly, the ET doll crumbles into little pieces. But it's not over, oh no. The pieces of the ET doll suddenly start crawling under the car seat until all of them are gone. Even though you shouldn't understand what is going to happen, you do. They're after it. They're after your precious snap.

    A few seconds pass where nothing happens. Then you feel a massive amount of tickle coming from deep inside your asshole! What's happening!? You know. The pieces of the ET doll are shuffling around inside your ass, thereby inflicting unimaginable levels of tickle upon it! The ass tickle is so extreme that any being that experienced it, regardless of the duration in which they experienced it, would be left as a mere shell of what they once were. It tickles. It tickles. It tickles. It tickles. It tickles. It tickles! Your ass, it tickles! While you are screaming, you hear the sound of an ET doll laughing softly and maliciously...

    Starting Score:    0  points
    Moderation   -1  
       Spam=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Spam' Modifier   0  

    Total Score:   -1