Seagate MACH.2 Multi Actuator Tech Enables 480MB/s HDDs

[John Naylor]

The question I thing for most of the population is the same as SSDs. Will anything I do on a daily basis benefit from this ? For 99+% of users, the answer will be no.

-Will grandma be able to open her grandkids pics receives from their mother this morning ?
-Will the legal secretary be able to type an extra legal brief before 5 o'clock ?
-Will the CAD operator be able to draft up and extra room in some dudes mansion ?
-Will the stock broker have up to date info available to him any faster ?
-Will a gamer be able to reach an further save point before bedtime ?

For others ...

-Will it eliminate the need for a large SSD scratch disk for video editing ?
-What is the impact on rendering boxes ?

 

[Typo91]

This reminds me of CD-ROMs when they where a dying platform.

Anyone remember the 2x and 4x models? not the 2x and 4x speed ones, i am talking about the 2x laser heads and 4x models.

They started adding read heads to CD-roms at the very end of there life, and spining the CD at crazy speeds to put things like 32x and 64x on the last generation boxes.

I remember if your CD had a little too much paint on the top of it not evenly balanced, or you put a sticker on one side it would vibrate itself like a dildo hooked to a car battery in your computer.

soon after CD-ROM drives where gone... replaced by dvd, later replaced by blue ray, and never taken serously for storage because blank discs didn't be cost effective till well after hard disks where the cheapest and most effective way to backup. (next to tape drives but thats a tech that no one really likes, even though in dark datacenters saw impressive speeds and function. no one likes them.)

Make no mistake HDDs are going the way of the dinosaur, with this on the horizon https://globalnews.ca/news/4347953/university-alberta-scientists-memory-space/
RIP HDDs. its a desperate move... however its only a matter of time now.

 

[mtcn77]

HAMR is actually pretty good for data security. If the motor doesn't spin, you cannot erase it with standard magnets. I'm sure the enterprise and video surveillance series will have such security implementations since the concept is so unique.

 

[lexluthermiester]

So uh... isnt this just the same as two hard drives in RAID 0, in a 3.5" box?

That's what I was thinking...

because blank discs didn't be cost effective till well after hard disks where the cheapest and most effective way to backup.

That has got to be the silliest statement I've read in a while. Not to mention misinformed..

 

[rtwjunkie]

Make no mistake HDDs are going the way of the dinosaur, with this on the horizon

I’m, no, no RIP just yet. Large capacity HDD still have plenty of life left. 4 TB probably 10 years at least.

 

[Totally]

480MB/s sustained speeds on a platter drive is impressive. But the bigger question is: will it be cheaper than SSDs of similar capacity or there is no difference?

Even if it was cheaper to to make, why would they? They'd price it just under comparable SSDs same price if they can get away with it.

 

[TheGuruStud]

So it'll fail several time faster....yeah, mmmm, love me some 2 month hdd replacement cycles. Go home crapgate, you're drunk. I'm certain no one has bothered due to reliability, since it could have been done anytime in the last 25 yrs.

 

[Blueberries]

Still mechanical parts. Still makes noise. Still draws more power than an SSD. What are the random access speeds? How did they achieve this speed, i.e., is there a NAND cache?

The only viable application for HDDs, even this speed, is a very specific enterprise use that requires more than 1 TB of storage.

 

[ShurikN]

If this was offered 10 years ago, it would have been nice, but today.... Too little too late.

 

[Prince Valiant]

I’m, no, no RIP just yet. Large capacity HDD still have plenty of life left. 4 TB probably 10 years at least.

I won't be moving away from HDDs until I can get a decent 1TB SSD for under $100. I barely noticed a difference when I switched to an SSD for my OS drive.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

About damn time. They could have been doing this decades ago but no, need threat of SSD to pressure them into doing it.

So uh... isnt this just the same as two hard drives in RAID 0, in a 3.5" box?

Yes, and now I want one actuator per platter so on high density drives, it's literally RAID0*9 (~2 GB/s read/write) from a single drive.

 

[Vagike]

Like a RAID 0, just in a single package. no?

 

[lexluthermiester]

Like a RAID 0, just in a single package. no?

That's a good analogy, and likely exactly how they are doing it.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Except they aren't. RAID 0 is much higher level than the technology they're implementing here. I suspect they're sending even numbered sectors to one set of platters and odd numbered sectors to the other set of platters.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Except they aren't. RAID 0 is much higher level than the technology they're implementing here. I suspect they're sending even numbered sectors to one set of platters and odd numbered sectors to the other set of platters.

That is exactly what RAID 0 does, except instead of platters within the same drive, it's to different drives. The technical implementation might differ somewhat, but the application and effect is the same.