Shulou(Shulou.com)06/02 Report--

[IT168 comment] in the era of massive data, technologies such as AI, big data and the Internet of things have not only brought about the transformation of business applications, but also brought about the "blowout" growth of data. IDC has predicted that the global data volume will be as high as 163ZB in 2025. In this case, data storage has become a critical issue and will become more and more important.

Mechanical hard disk (HDD) used to be our main storage device, but with the emergence of flash solid state disk (SSD) with higher performance and the substantial reduction of its unit cost, the hard disk market has been greatly impacted, and many people even think that it will become the obsolete in the era of rapid development.

But as we said above, the era of massive data has arrived, and the significant advantages of hard disk in terms of capacity, stability and cost enable it to play a new role in enterprise data centers-large-capacity cold and warm data storage. It can also be said that massive data storage gives the hard disk new vitality.

The major hard disk manufacturers who have an accurate grasp of the industry trend have begun to focus on large-capacity enterprise-class hard drives to improve the storage density and stability of hard drives through a variety of innovative technologies. committed to providing economic and reliable large-scale data storage solutions for the enterprise market.

Helium charging technology, which was first introduced in 2013, can now be said to be the main way to increase the capacity of hard drives. Replacing the air filled inside the hard disk with helium with a density of only 1/7 of the former can reduce airflow resistance and greatly shorten the distance between discs so that more discs can be placed in the same size hard disk, while reducing energy consumption and working temperature.

In a previous article, "what technologies are hidden in Toshiba's 16TB hard drives with the largest capacity in the industry?", we introduced Toshiba's latest MG08 series of helium hard drives with 16TB capacity, and analyzed the technologies contained in them. Today, I will introduce another industry-leading high-capacity helium hard drive-Seagate's 14TB hard drive Exos X14 launched at the OCP Summit in 2018.

Seagate's High capacity Helium hard disk Exos X14

The Seagate Exos X14 uses a helium-filled 8-disc package with a single disc capacity of 1.75TB, built-in Seagate Secure technology, and instant security erasure technology, reaching the security level of FIPS 140-2, maximizing data security and outstanding performance in terms of weight and power consumption optimization of the hard drive design.

While maintaining a 3.5in specification, the Seagate Galaxy enterprise-class helium disk Exos X14 provides higher storage density, making it ideal for use in very large-scale environments. The increase in area density means Seagate will be able to provide greater storage capacity in smaller hard disk sizes-a milestone in meeting the growing needs of the data center. The Seagate Galaxy Series Exos X14 delivers the industry's lowest power consumption, smallest size, and best-in-class hard drive performance, an affordable solution that maximizes data center storage capacity and reduces complexity and operating costs.

Built-in SeagateSecure that encrypts all data without compromising performance. The new hard drive is also certified by the Federal Information processing Standard (FIPS) 1402 and complies with the General guidelines for Information Technology Security Evaluation (CC), the International computer Security Certification Standard (ISO/EIC15408). Other key features of the Exos X14 include a 40% increase in the number of PB per rack compared to the Galaxy series 10TB hard drives, a 10% reduction in disk weight compared to air-encapsulated near-line hard drives, design flexibility to provide a wider range of integration options, and support for more workloads.

Baidu has previously evaluated the Seagate Exos X14 hard drive. Liu Chao, senior director of Baidu Systems Department, said: "Baidu attaches great importance to technological innovation and is committed to providing better experience and service to our users and customers through technological innovation. With users' dependence on massive data applications and the sustained and rapid growth of data, we need to work with industry partners to build sustainable storage solutions. The Seagate Galaxy series enterprise-class helium disk Exos X14 provides us with a cost-effective means to meet the growing storage needs. "

Where is Seagate's 16TB?

In fact, Seagate already has a layout for 16TB hard drives, and it has been reported that the company has developed a 16TB Exos hard drive based on thermal-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) technology and is testing it, which will be officially launched in the first half of this year. HAMR technology aims to deal with the difficulty of micro-field writing of magnetic head under the condition of ultra-high density storage, by heating the magnetic storage medium by laser to reduce the coercive force of the medium, so that the magnetic head is easy to magnetize the storage medium. Seagate is a HAMR development program that began at the end of 2001, with the participation of many enterprises, research institutes and standards research institutions.

Compared with helium-filled technology to provide more discs, HAMR technology increases the capacity of hard drives by increasing the capacity density of a single disc. Now it seems that the research of HAMR hard disk has come to "blossom and bear fruit". Earlier, Seagate said in its official blog that the Exynos 16TB HAMR technology hard drive preview version has been successfully tested among enterprise customers, customers can directly use the hard drive without change, and its reliability and data transmission capacity are as high as 20 times the customer requirements and industry standards.

According to Seagate's plan, after the initial 16TB capacity of HAMR hard drives, the future will launch 18TB and 20TB larger capacity hard drives, 20TB capacity is expected to be achieved in 2020.

In fact, with regard to 18TB, 20TB and even larger hard disk products, including Toshiba, Western Digital and other major hard disk manufacturers have a layout, and the route is clear. It shows that the competition for hard disk capacity has become increasingly fierce, which is of course popular for the whole industry. Larger capacity per disk means lower space consumption, lower power consumption, and lower TCO. In response to data bursts, hard drives will become a more effective way at this stage.

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