Toshiba Sets New Nearline HDD Shipment Record in Q4 2021

[Uskompuf]

Toshiba America Electronic Components today announced a new Nearline HDD shipment record of 2.89 million units for the December 2021 quarter. The new Nearline unit record reflected year over year growth of 80% and topped the previous best quarter by 4% set earlier in the year. Nearline Exabytes in the quarter grew sequentially to 33.81 and was up over 94% from a year ago.

"Toshiba continues to execute in the Nearline space, and this is reflected in the company's new Nearline unit shipment record in 4CQ21," stated Ed Burns, Research Director at IDC. "Toshiba's cutting-edge technology such as FC-MAMR (Flux-Controlled - Microwave-Assisted Magnetic Recording) and MAS-MAMR (Microwave Assisted Switching - Microwave-Assisted Magnetic Recording) should further their competitiveness in the Nearline HDD market."





"We had an amazing year, as our company posted several new records in 2021. However, none of this could have been achieved without partnerships from several strategic customers and dedication from all Toshiba HDD employees," said Kyle Yamamoto, Vice President of TAEC's HDD Business Unit. "We will look to continue our positive momentum in 2022, as we set our sights on new milestones."

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[JAB Creations]

Wait, who the heck is still buying mechanical hard drives in 2022?

 

[kapone32]

Wait, who the heck is still buying mechanical hard drives in 2022?

I was going to ask the exact same thing. My wife asked me to look at her laptop, it has a HDD in her laptop and I watched her boot into Windows the other day. I kept thinking to myself you don't really understand how fast NAND is until you see an HDD in Action.

 

[JAB Creations]

I was going to ask the exact same thing. My wife asked me to look at her laptop, it has a HDD in her laptop and I watched her boot into Windows the other day. I kept thinking to myself you don't really understand how fast NAND is until you see an HDD in Action.

Maybe some back-water computers that quietly sit in a dark closet or something? I'm not saying mechanical hard drives don't have uses though even with heightened demand for technology a 94% growth for one corporation for outdated tech doesn't make any sense.

 

[BSim500]

Who seriously asks "Who is still buying HDD's in (insert current year)" as if they have zero sense of self-awareness that there's a whole world of requirements outside of "muh gaming rig's boot drive"? What the hell do you guys think 99% of the Internet is stored and backed up on, magic beans? If every website used Samsung PRO SSD's for hosting, almost every website would be subscription-only due to prohibitive hosting costs + there would be a severe shortage of SSD's for consumers...

 

[JAB Creations]

Who seriously asks "Who is still buying HDD's in (insert current year)" as if they have zero sense of self-awareness that there's a whole world of requirements outside of "muh gaming rig's boot drive"? What the hell do you guys think 99% of the Internet is stored and backed up on, magic beans? If every website used Samsung PRO SSD's for hosting, almost every website would be subscription-only due to prohibitive hosting costs + there would be a severe shortage of SSD's for consumers...

We're talking about the increase in hard drive sales, not hard drive sales in general.

 

[BSim500]

We're talking about the increase in hard drive sales, not hard drive sales in general.

Yes and the answer is the same - the web / data storage needs haven't stopped growing just because SSD's exist...

 

[JAB Creations]

Yes and the answer is the same - the web / data storage needs haven't stopped growing just because SSD's exist...

We are quite aware that hard drives aren't consumer-only goods. The article made zero reference to where or why the sales increased hence the conversation that you're clearly not comprehending.

 

[BSim500]

We are quite aware that hard drives aren't consumer-only goods. The article made zero reference to where or why the sales increased hence the conversation that you're clearly not comprehending.

LOL. There was no 'conversation' beyond "HDD's sux because SSD's" or "they must be stuffed in a closet". If you think they aren't growing because of data storage needs, then what do you think the 'real' reason is (given the entire point & purpose of a HDD is to... store data...)?

 

[R-T-B]

Web growth requires cheap storage, as he stated.

HDDs are cheap storage. Enterprise sales go brrrr.

 

[JAB Creations]

LOL. There was no 'conversation' beyond "HDD's sux because SSD's" or "they must be stuffed in a closet". If you think they aren't growing because of data storage needs, then what do you think the 'real' reason is (given the entire point & purpose of a HDD is to... store data...)?

You're a troll, ignored. Buh-bye!

Web growth requires cheap storage, as he stated.

HDDs are cheap storage. Enterprise sales go brrrr.

Agreed though typically when a business reports strong sales they attribute it to something. Either the article lacked that or the refernces the author used lacked that.

 

[R-T-B]

You're a troll, ignored. Buh-bye!

Wow.

 

[BSim500]

You're a troll, ignored. Buh-bye!

If me quoting you is "trolling"...

Maybe some back-water computers that quietly sit in a dark closet or something?

... then some obvious self-reflection is required...

Data storage requirements are exploding everywhere. From more servers, more offsite mirrors (as companies finally figure out that insurance against ransomware is a good thing), to increased home work (more backup drives & NAS's). Companies don't need to spell out the obvious in each individual financial report just for you to figure out it's an obvious trend...

 

[Caring1]

What does "Nearline HDD" mean?

 

[BSim500]

What does "Nearline HDD" mean?

It's the intermediate stage between "online storage" (instantly available) and offline storage (eg, 'cold storage' backups, unpowered and stored in a vault). It means a layer of storage that's not immediately available but can be converted to being "online storage" fairly quickly (and usually much faster and without human intervention compared to "cold storage" backups).

 

[R-T-B]

It's the intermediate stage between "online storage" (instantly available) and offline storage (eg, 'cold storage' backups, unpowered and stored in a vault). It means a layer of storage that's not immediately available but can be converted to being "online storage" fairly quickly (and usually much faster and without human intervention compared to "cold storage" backups).

I've heard it's actually more to do with it being a standard Enterprise drive in a SATA drive package, so basically, something that would be enterprise sans SAS. Confusingly, it can also mean a consumer drive with SAS-strapped on. Anyways, either way, it usually targets enterprise use case.

 

[Psychoholic]

As a SAN Engineer for a large vendor, I am not really surprised by this.
As has been previously stated the vast majority of enterprise storage is still on spinning rust (7.2K, 10K, 15K drives)
SSD (SAS and NVME) are slowly catching on but are mostly used for cache in the enterprise SANs.