BOULDER, Colo. – Two leaders in the computer disk industry are taking different routes to produce higher capacity drives, according to a recent report from the Boulder, Colorado-based data storage company Spectra Logic.
The Seagate company is producing a 20-terabyte heat-assisted magnetic recording-based disk drive, according to the report. Western Digital is taking an incremental approach using microwave-assisted magnetic recording, heat-assisted magnetic recording and other methods.
Shingled magnetic recording versions of the drives will boost their capacity by 20%, making them more attractive to system and cloud providers, according to the report.
Spectra’s report includes predictions for several types of data storage, including flash devices, magnetic disks and tapes. The report also offers a look at future technologies.
“The pandemic has made predicting the future an uncertain task, but even so, it is vital that data storage technology manufacturers and users of data alike have access to insights to help them anticipate future technologies, applications, use cases and costs, as accurate planning is critical to achieving success tomorrow,” said David Trachy, senior director of emerging markets.
OTHER REPORT HIGHLIGHTS
Flash: Flash vendors will begin relying heavily on the string-stacking technique, in which multi-layer flash devices are connected to create a flash chip with more layers.
This could mean fewer cost reductions for flash devices. System and cloud providers will take advantage of the zone-based interface, which will allow users to place data in zones matching the data’s performance needs, to boost their flash assets’ lives, performance and capacity.
Tape: The open-tape format LTO-9 tape will ship later this year with a capacity of 18 terabytes per cartridge, a 50% increase over the LTO- 9 format. A new standard interface has surfaced which could expand the number of applications using tape.
Hybrid perpetual storage: New hybrid storage systems will allow the use of either cloud and/or on-site processing capability, while providing for long-term retention of raw and refined data regardless of where processing occurs.