Friday, July 28th 2023
Seagate Starts Shipping Commercial Exos HAMR HDDs
Seagate has revealed that it has received revenue for Exos Corvault systems during a fourth quarter and fiscal year 2023 conference call—the latest server range is equipped with heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) hard drives. We heard about evaluation samples being sent out to an important data center client around Spring time, but fresh corporate announcements have revealed that the first commercial HAMR-based systems have been picked up by paying customers. Gianluca Romano, the firm's chief financial officer stated: "Importantly, we shipped our first HAMR-based CORVAULT system for revenue as planned during the June quarter. We expect broader availability of these CORVAULT systems by the end of calendar 2023."
Seagate's chief executive, Dave Mosley, also revealed that higher capacity HAMR-based nearline hard drives have been sent out for testing in the field. He boasts that this was achieved during corporate cost cutting initiatives: "We reduced production output by approximately 25% compared with peak volume in order to drive better supply/demand dynamics and enhance profitability as the markets recover. And all of these accomplishments were made while delivering on our 30 TB+ HAMR product development and qualification milestones with volume ramp on track to begin in early calendar 2024...Initial customer qualifications are progressing well. We are on track to begin volume ramp in early calendar 2024. We are also preparing qualifications with a broader number of customers, including testing for lower capacity drives targeting VIA and enterprise OEM workloads." He also outlined plans to keep PMR and SMR hard drive technologies alive for another generation: "Development efforts on what may be our last PMR product are nearing completion and will extend drive capacities into the mid- to upper 20 TB range." Clients who are reluctant to jump onto HAMR could be offered some alternatives—24 TB+ models based on PMR+TDMR and SMR+TDMR configurations are roadmapped for release by the end of the year.
Seagate Technology's blurb states: "While data creation is growing exponentially, IT teams and budgets are not. That's why we built Exos CORVAULT. As a set-and-forget solution, you can store mass data with less human intervention. The system heals itself on the fly thanks to Seagate Autonomous Drive Regeneration (ADR). That means fewer opportunities for human error and more cost savings."
Learn more here.
Sources:
Seeking Alpha, Tom's Hardware
Seagate's chief executive, Dave Mosley, also revealed that higher capacity HAMR-based nearline hard drives have been sent out for testing in the field. He boasts that this was achieved during corporate cost cutting initiatives: "We reduced production output by approximately 25% compared with peak volume in order to drive better supply/demand dynamics and enhance profitability as the markets recover. And all of these accomplishments were made while delivering on our 30 TB+ HAMR product development and qualification milestones with volume ramp on track to begin in early calendar 2024...Initial customer qualifications are progressing well. We are on track to begin volume ramp in early calendar 2024. We are also preparing qualifications with a broader number of customers, including testing for lower capacity drives targeting VIA and enterprise OEM workloads." He also outlined plans to keep PMR and SMR hard drive technologies alive for another generation: "Development efforts on what may be our last PMR product are nearing completion and will extend drive capacities into the mid- to upper 20 TB range." Clients who are reluctant to jump onto HAMR could be offered some alternatives—24 TB+ models based on PMR+TDMR and SMR+TDMR configurations are roadmapped for release by the end of the year.
Learn more here.
18 Comments on Seagate Starts Shipping Commercial Exos HAMR HDDs
In the case of the announcement they are most likely talking about there SAS Exos 2x20 MACH2 drives. which is the series IIRC that will first get the HAMR treatment.
Looking at the wiki
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat-assisted_magnetic_recording#:~:text=Heat%2Dassisted%20magnetic%20recording%20(HAMR,receptive%20to%20magnetic%20effects%20and
It appears this is more an evolution of PMR/SMR but in the context of the writing almost seems to indicate its a successor to PMR itself. I could be wrong though.
They have bin sitting too long on the idea that HDD's never would be obsolete. HDD's where quite a long time always the slowest thing inside a computer.
However, while I think you are right when it comes to "a computer" and "most peoples" needs (with SSD/nvme pushing 8TB in consumer land) it will take DRASTICALLY longer for the niche this product serves to be replaced.
We are not close at all to replacing disk shelved with SSDs. From an expense and practicality standpoint at all.
I'm not sure - i feel like HDD's have bin behind on tech for quite alot of time, and also the statement to lower production and thus to thrive up prices for new disk is also a signal to keep shareholders happy. They had the tech for so long dominated in their hands but refused to continue to work to still keep HDD"s relevant. I mean tape storage is still a thing, and the sizes on those are into the petabyte's - it's just slow as a turd to maintain still.
The avg price in Euro's for a 1TB SSD / Samsung is within 70 euro's. That grants you up to 550MB of read / write. 70 euro back then would get you a 40 to 80GB HDD spinning at usually 5400RPM. Crazy how times are changed.
These will be WD Golds, Seagate EXOS, backed by Intel/Kingston or Micron DC SSD drives as cache. When you are dealing with Pure, EMC, Nimble, you are not thinking about budget per server devices for some $5/mo VPS host. These appliances run linked to clusters, corporate or otherwise and backup client data, research data, or just corporate data.
You wouldnt get something like a 990pro anywhere near these devices.
Theres other technologies too that is coming to hard drives, which is at the demand of companies like Google, Microsoft, Amazon, etc. to provide more throughput as drives capacities grow.
146a55aca6f00848c565-a7635525d40ac1c70300198708936b4e.ssl.cf1.rackcdn.com/images/96a89bfd93ff3752e89e34106db57564de626d54.pdf
Looks like its head based.
In 4TB we finally have much better options - like Crucial P3 Plus SSD 4TB, M.2, for 160 - 170 EUR. And plenty fast for most uses, about 20x faster than Samsung QVO :p
But I really need 8TB drive for my photo library. There were some announcements for 8TB M.2 drives to be launched later this year and in next year, but it was very poorly covered in press, so I wouldn't be surprised if all those products get postponed in the recent drive for lowering costs instead of offering products we would buy.
Here I will break it down.
Your big players in this space are going to be Micron, Nimbus and Seagate. They are the ones pushing the boundries of SSD flash atm. Most of these products only a few have had the chance to touch physically. Most announcements are made because of the break through, but these drives take years to test and circulate at big FAANG companies for feedback.
Even then when it is "available" for purchase generally you need a "use case" or be a business.
Finally; I mean just look at them. Lets start
Micron: You will be looking at the ION line. This is where there higher densities usually are. Currently you can get 6500 series.
media-www.micron.com/-/media/client/global/documents/products/product-flyer/6500_ion_nvme_ssd_product_brief.pdf?la=en&rev=0551c45ada82469aa6162c87473e2b06
These max out at 30TB and come in EL.1 form factor and are about the size of your arm. I have had the ability to touch these and its as close to "nvme" as your going to get.
The next is U.3 (SAS) form factor which looks like a normal hard drive; but its not.
Next up is Nimbus (Toshiba): They have the big boy drive atm for "public" company consumption. It is 100TB and is part of the exadrive line.
nimbusdata.com/docs/ExaDrive-DC-Datasheet.pdf
This is a 3.5" drive on QLC NAND that comes in SATA only.
Finally we have Seagate:
They have a 60TB prototype they released a few years back. These drives AFAIK have not made it to market and because they were prototypes were not part of an official product stack. They were 12gb/s SAS but I dont know much else about it.
None of these as you already know are economical, but I belive even the Microns are QVO. These are meant for storage with faster drives caching even still. They certainly were not designed to fit in anyones case and while I expect these capacities to get even more consumer availability we have been stuck on 8tb for just that reason. Servers are allowed to break this mold by simply putting the nand in another server specific form factor.