Seagate, WD mull 10-platter HDDs as pitstop before HAMR, MAMR time

With 10-platter conventionally recorded disk drives touting capacities of up to 20TB by 2021, the arrival of HAMR and MAMR drives could slip back to 2022. Trendfocus, a research firm specialising in data storage, suggests the launch of conventional technology in 18TB capacities in the second half of 2020 could delay the …

[Trenjeska]

Please avoid SMR. Shingles are for roofs, not data discs.

[Suricou Raven]

My own home server array used SMR drives. I've been replacing them with proper drives as they fail. Which they do. Frequently, and expensively.

I don't know if it's just the 'Seagate 8TB Archive' drives or SMRs in general, or because they are running in a very non-temperature-controlled environment, but they don't seem to last. And their performance is awful. I had to stick an SSD in configured as cache to get it halfway usable.

[katrinab]

"I've been replacing them with proper drives as they fail. Which they do. Frequently, and expensively."

After writing about 50GB of data, which takes about two days.

[Atomsk]

SMR is suited to write once read never. i.e. the cat photo posted on Facebook

Facebook stores it (like they do with everything they possibly can) but no one cares about your cat so the picture is never viewed, thus the disk is never read.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, the old WOM (Write-Only Memory) reappears. See http://repeater-builder.com/molotora/gontor/25120-bw.pdf

[Captain Obvious]

Same issue

Took me forever to sell off all of mine before they failed. SMR is slow and unreliable.

[Ima Ballsy]

More ....

Porn ... less time ....

[LewisRage]

Re: Does not compute.

bits = b

Bytes = B

[Mage]

Sounds good.

More platters sounds better than shingles or leaky helium.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd rather have HAMR or MAMR than SMR...

[Kev99]

At least if the drive pukes on you you have a better than even chance to recover your data, unlike SSDs.

[BigBear]

Data recovery from failed SSDs vs big HDs

I don’t think SSDs are in the same marketplace. SSDs are for personal computers and big HDs are for big data storage, such as online backup or cloud databases, and would typically be configured with data redundancy through RAID 1, 5, or 6.

How recoverable data is from a failed SSD depends highly on the cause of the failure, just as with HDs, but I’m ignorant of the details.

SSDs make me nervous, too. Do your backups!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Data recovery from failed SSDs vs big HDs

Yeah. Active data vs backup/cold storage kinda application here?

[Anonymous Coward]

lose more data faster

the cemeteries are filled with indispensable men - Charles de Gaulle

the dumpsters are filled with indispensable HDs - vaporland

[defiler]

10 platters?

I thought it was 10 heads until I looked it up - 10 platters is a hell of a lot of momentum in one of these. Must weigh a fair old bit, and be packed pretty tight. It'll take a surprising amount of power too, I expect.

Can't find the details just now, and I'm too busy to waste more time on it, but I was surprised at how the 3TB WD Greens in my home server had been superseded over the years in areal density, with accompanying drops in power. (Already accepting that an 18TB drive with 9 platters can justifiably use 6x the power of a 3TB drive...)

[Steve Crook]

20TB?

Things have moved on a bit since I started programming on ICL mainframes. They had 20MB drives. The covers for the removable disc packs made excellent garden cloches....

I keep looking at these increasingly arcane schemes to squeeze more onto a disc and wondering how resilient they are. Evidence says not so much, so thank heavens for raid arrays and cheaper SSDs.

[cloudguy]

HDDs Limited by Form Factor

Well, how to cram more bits in a square inch on an HDD platter has been going on for a long time. HAMR and MAMR HDDs are the next generations as PMR HDDs reach the limits imposed by physics. SMR HDDs are an error-prone aberration. Helium filled HDDs are more of a gimmick. Helium atoms themselves are very hard to contain for a long time. The real problem is HDDs are constrained by their form factor. NAND flash in all its various form factors is more flexible and extensible. Caging electrons is going to prove more productive than manipulating magnetic domains. NAND flash already dominates the 3TB and under storage drive market. NAND flash prices are at or slightly below the $0.10 per GB price. HDDs are living on borrowed time. They weigh too much, use too much space and consume too much electricity.