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We have previously run stories about 2 TB, 4 TB, and 6 TB Solid State Drives (SSDs) and their seemingly inevitable but gradual increase in capacity over time. Samsung just announced a HUGE increase in drive capacity, leap-frogging all other storage devices out there — including spinning hard disk storage [takyon: a 6 TB 2.5" drive already leapfrogs spinning disk]!
Ars Technica is reporting that Samsung unveils 2.5-inch 16TB SSD: The world's largest hard drive. The third-generation 3D V-NAND is now up to 48 TLC layers and 256Gbit per die. From the article:
At the Flash Memory Summit in California, Samsung has unveiled what appears to be the world's largest hard drive—and somewhat surprisingly, it uses NAND flash chips rather than spinning platters. The rather boringly named PM1633a, which is being targeted at the enterprise market, manages to cram almost 16 terabytes into a 2.5-inch SSD package. By comparison, the largest conventional hard drives made by Seagate and Western Digital currently max out at 8 or 10TB.
The secret sauce behind Samsung's 16TB SSD is the company's new 256Gbit (32GB) NAND flash die; twice the capacity of 128Gbit NAND dies that were commercialised by various chip makers last year. To reach such an astonishing density, Samsung has managed to cram 48 layers of 3-bits-per-cell (TLC) 3D V-NAND into a single die. This is up from 24 layers in 2013, and then 36 layers in 2014.
Though claimed capacity is 16 TB, actual available storage is 15.36 TB (providing 640 GB of over provisioning.) The drive is 15mm high so it is geared to the enterprise market; it probably won't fit in your laptop where 9.5mm is an unofficial standard.
In case you were wondering, by some estimates this capacity is enough to store 1.5 copies of the uncompressed textual data in the print collection of the US Library of Congress (LoC).
It boggles my mind to consider such large storage capacities. Given the global population is about 8.3 billion, just one of these drives would be sufficient to store 1.8 KiB on every human being on the planet, never mind an entire rack of these drives.
What practical use is there for such capacities? What would you do with one (or more) of these? How would this fit into your "Big Data" application?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Tork on Tuesday August 18 2015, @11:21PM
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(Score: 2) by acid andy on Tuesday August 18 2015, @11:38PM
That's still only strictly necessary for an organization that's so small it's only got one site for its servers. I get that there's an advantage in outsourcing backups or load balancing to a third party that specializes in it. The cloud term has been used by marketing departments to mean far more than just that though. It's being pushed hard onto the home user for just the purposes I described. These concepts all existed before the term took off anyway. Cloud is just internet.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by Tork on Wednesday August 19 2015, @02:09AM
It's being pushed hard onto the home user for just the purposes I described.
That's exactly the point I'm taking issue with: No, this is not the case. The people who are using the cloud for backups are people who are using services like DropBox. Basically DB is a syncing app, not some bottomless pit of storage so you don't have to keep it on your computer. In fact you have to go out of your way to store something on DropBox that isn't on your computer. What I think you're talking about, i.e. the cloud acting as a large hard drive for the masses, are services like iCloud which is basically used to re-download iTunes purchases so you can temporarily clear space on your memory-limited iDevices. A large hard drive on their computer wouldn't negate this.
No, this won't kill 'the cloud'.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Wednesday August 19 2015, @08:08AM
I was also thinking of things like Microsoft's OneDrive. Their web apps push people to save files directly to it rather than downloading them.
I know more storage won't really put an end to the cloud. I just wish it would because I don't like big businesses getting their hands on people's data (and being able to make it unavailable when you later find you do need it). More storage always makes it easier for an individual to perform more backups. If you're a home user and you want an off site backup you could always just swap external hard drives with a friend periodically. OK, there are still trust issues but at least they're hopefully not focused on profit.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 22 2015, @03:32PM
I know people, people that are tech people, that are ok with the default of saving their phone pictures right onto google drive or onedrive and having shared access across their... desktop and phone/tablet.
These are the same people that, like me, set up a file server locally to do just that.
I do not understand why they have accepted the idea that it's OK to give your data to a third party and then download it again, using your (most likely tiered or metered) internet connection multiple times to do this... when you could just save it locally.
If worried about the server exploding and all data going into ruinous unrecoverable territory, then back it up via any conventional method... but to surrender so easily, just because its a default...
Many of the same people are upset that their jobs are being diminished due to a lack of local server work and the remaining pool being reduced more and more. These same folks helped migrate companies to office 365 and google docs and such, because everyone else is doing it, because the licensing for a local version is too high, and because their managers get a kickback for each conversion and to retain partner status they have to promote cloud over local. And yet they choose to do nothing about it and use the same services that ultimately undermine their employability.
I don't understand why they aren't at least resisting it. Perhaps they are just adopting to their new quiet desperation. As for me, I got out of server work a while ago, but I still have them running around the home... just because I can put years of data behind a EULA that promises me slow access to all of my data for as long as the vendor lets me use it, doesn't mean I will submit to it for free.
Many of them drank the koolaid that if the server is old then its old and so must be replaced. I dunno, the file shares are acting the same way... if you're worried about security issues on your file server because someone on the itnernet can infect its flash, I must ask why flash is running on your file server, and further, why the file server is visiting websites that need flash and then running the flash code.
People think I am strange to ask--I am asked who actually has a server at home that isn't used to actually surf the web as part of what its for?? and therein lies a problem.. the server serves. I don't visit other servers with the servers, unless you count email.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Saturday August 22 2015, @08:10PM
I do not understand why they have accepted the idea that it's OK to give your data to a third party and then download it again, using your (most likely tiered or metered) internet connection multiple times to do this... when you could just save it locally.
The process is automatic and phones are easily lost and or stolen.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈