Toshiba Group has announced the world's first demonstration of HDD recording performance improvement with Microwave Assisted Switching-Microwave Assisted Magnetic Recording (MAS-MAMR), a next-generation magnetic recording technology. The demonstration confirms that the technology delivers substantial storage capacity gains, and Toshiba now aims to realize early commercialization of nearline HDDs with capacities exceeding 30 TB.

Toshiba is placing considerable R&D effort on MAMR, a breakthrough technology that boosts HDD recording density. In 2021, the company started shipment of 18 TB HDDs that apply Flux Control MAMR (FC-MAMR ), which uses spin torque oscillators to assist recording. MAS-MAMR is expected to improve recording density beyond that of FC-MAMR by locally exposing microwave to -recording media. However, this was not shown to be possible in practice until the recent demonstration.

Toshiba announces the MN09, a massive capacity 18 TB addition to its NAS HDD line-up. High growth in data creation is driving demand for higher storage capacities, and work-from-home customers need fast access to data and the ability to archive and share data in private cloud environments. The 18 TB MN09 delivers greater storage capacity and power efficiency to meet the growing needs of storage customers.

MN09 is a 9-disk helium-sealed conventional magnetic recording (CMR) drive that leverages Toshiba's new innovative Flux Control Microwave-Assisted Magnetic Recording (FC-MAMR ) technology. FC-MAMR advances CMR capacity to 18 TB and delivers increased density per platter over previous designs. The MN09 is the 3rd generation to use Toshiba's pioneering 9-disk helium-sealed mechanical design.

Marvell today announced that it will ship its 5 billionth hard disk drive (HDD) controller next month, marking a significant milestone in the company's 25 years of delivering data storage solutions. This achievement is a testament to the longevity of Marvell's HDD business and underscores the company's ongoing commitment to investing in and developing cutting-edge Bravera HDD products and IP to address the ever-increasing need for greater storage capacity.

The ongoing digital transformation is driving the adoption of cloud services, digital payments, artificial intelligence, and 5G, requiring higher capacity data storage. As a result, cloud data centers are looking for HDD storage to meet the growing zettabyte demand. Marvell's comprehensive suite of Bravera HDD controller and preamplifier solutions leverage the company's IP and process excellence including over 1,500 HDD-related patents and 18 generations of Read Channel IP. With its advanced architecture built on best-in-class areal density, data reliability, and power consumption, Marvell is enabling the growth of mass storage applications from the edge to the cloud.

"Reaching our 5 billionth HDD controller shipment is a huge accomplishment and we'd like to take a moment to thank our longstanding customers and partners for their trust and collaboration over many years. We celebrate this milestone alongside them," said Dan Christman, Executive Vice President, Storage Group at Marvell. "We remain deeply committed to the HDD market and will continue to invest in leading-edge Bravera technologies that advance the next generation of cloud data storage infrastructure."

Data drives today's most innovative technology and business breakthroughs. Maximizing the value of an organization's data is dependent on the ability to store, access, and activate as much data as possible. Today, Seagate Technology Holdings plc, a world leader in mass-data storage infrastructure solutions, launched the new Exos X20 20 TB and IronWolf Pro 20 TB conventional magnetic recording (CMR)-based hard disk drives (HDDs), increasing mass-capacity data storage capabilities.

Seagate's Exos X20 enterprise HDD is designed for maximum storage capacity and the highest rack-space efficiency. Built with cloud storage in mind, the 20 TB Exos X20 delivers performance for hyperscale data centers and massive scale-out applications. With low latency of 4.16 ms and repeatable response times, Exos X20 provides enhanced caching that performs up to three times better than solutions that only utilize read or write caching. Exos X20 also delivers an increased sustained data rate (SDR) of up to 285 MB/s.

Back in June, NVM Express, Inc announced the NVMe 2.0 specification, which included support for mechanical drives, also known as hard disk drives. Seagate has now demoed the first implementation of NVMe 2.0 on a HDD and is targeting market availability sometime in 2024. You might wonder why anyone would want an NVMe equipped hard drive and the short answer is that it's intended for the server space.

One of the key reasons that Seagate is even considering this, is because of its multi-actuator drives, which the company is expecting to surpass the interface speed of 12 Gbps SAS in the future. In addition to this, it makes sense having a single storage interface on servers, which allows for a mixed storage drive environment, where some drive bays can be fitted with SSDs and others with NVMe based hard drives. Seagate is planning to sample key customers with early drives in September 2022 and final drives will be backwards compatible with SATA and SAS.

Back-up and protect your data from out in the wild to back in the office with the new Armor A66 portable hard drive from Silicon Power (SP). It's the ultimate all-terrain drive that's rugged enough to shake-off drops, shocks, rains, and dust with ease. Meeting the MIL-STD 810G Method 516.6 Procedure IV drop test requirements, this drive is military-grade shockproof against accidental bumps and drops for worry-free handling.

On the outside, an all-around rubber bumper provides 360˚ protection to both absorb and soften the effects of any unfortunate mishaps.On the inside, an advanced suspension system effectively reduces impact force and increases shock-absorption to keep data from directly feeling these effects. IPX4-level water-resistance shields the drive from splashing water in any direction to fearlessly go out regardless of the weather forecast.

At the company's HDD Reimagine event today, Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ: WDC) introduced a new flash-enhanced drive architecture that breaks traditional boundaries of storage. Building on the company's unique ability to innovate with HDD and flash, the new storage architecture with OptiNAND technology optimizes and integrates HDDs with iNAND embedded flash drives. This gives customers - like hyperscale cloud, CSPs, enterprises, smart video surveillance partners, NAS suppliers and more - a solution to meet the exponential growth in data creation by delivering the capacity, performance and reliability needed to store vast amounts of data today and well into the future.

Leveraging industry-first technologies including triple-stage actuator (TSA) and HelioSeal technology, the first products featuring the new drive architecture will deliver an unsurpassed 2.2 TB per platter, extending capacities gains on proven ePMR technology. Setting a new industry milestone, Western Digital has shipped samples of new nine-disk, 20 TB ePMR flash-enhanced drives with OptiNAND technology to select customers.

The Chia coin, often dubbed Green Bitcoin, is a project that promised to be a green alternative to all of the previous attempts at creating a coin that can be mined. Using the Proof of Space (PoS) technique requires massive storage space and Chia plotting can destroy modern SSDs in a matter of weeks. However, the green disputes have been questioned widely, and the Chia coin is not considered so much of a green alternative anymore. From its peak of $1645, it has tumbled down by over 80% of that and it is now worth around $281 at the time of writing.

As these prices have declined a lot, miners are starting to look away from the coin and have started to resell their hardware. This massive SSD and HDD reselling has started to obtain new funds for miners to move to another alternative cryptocurrency. In the awe of this, some miners are rebranding their worn-out and used SSDs as brand new, and selling them in China advertising new conditions. As Chia plotting tends to destroy SSDs, it is only a matter of time before these "brand new" drives start failing. After China, we could see other markets flooded with these drives as well, so it is always best to be cautious with your purchase.

Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. (TAEC) today announced that for a second consecutive quarter, the company posted a 30+% Q-Q growth in Nearline HDD unit shipment and capacity shipped. Toshiba's Nearline HDD shipments and exabytes reached 2.79 million and 34.15 representing sequential growth of 32% and 33%, respectively. According to TRENDFOCUS' new report (SDAS: HDD Information Service CQ2 '21 Quarterly Update - Executive Summary August 5, 2021), Toshiba's four-quarter average unit and capacity shipped growth rates for Nearline HDDs led all companies at 35% and 46%, respectively. Additionally, Toshiba was the only company to post growth rates higher than the industry's four-quarter average.

"Demand for HDDs, specifically Nearline HDDs, have been on an upward trend due to strong cloud and OEM demand, while the initial launch of the Chia cryptocurrency fueled new incremental channel requirements. Toshiba's competitive Nearline HDD product line up is lifting the company to new records," stated John Chen, Vice President at TRENDFOCUS, Inc. "Moreover, Toshiba's FC-MAMR (Flux Control - Microwave Assisted Magnetic Recording) technology used in its 18 TB (MG-09) Nearline HDD product should provide a robust foundation to build upon for its next-generation products."

Seagate has recently announced during their latest earnings call that they are preparing to launch mass-market 20 TB PMR hard drives in H2 2021. Seagate already has several business-focused 20 TB HAMR drives which are available in limited quantities to select partners. These new 20 TB PMR drives will feature two-dimensional magnetic recording and are already sampling with customers. Seagate is also working on SMR 20 TB drives for Hyperscale systems with specialized software. Seagate hopes this growing lineup of 20 TB drives will help them address specific customer needs.

Seagate CEOWe expect to begin shipping 20 terabyte PMR drives in the second half of this calendar year.

International Data Corporation (IDC) recently published new forecasts for the worldwide hard disk drive (HDD) and solid state drive (SSD) markets. While both markets were affected the COVID-19 pandemic, the outlook looks good as demand for storage remains strong in multiple areas. Worldwide HDD industry petabyte shipments are expected to see a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18.5% over the 2020-2025 forecast period and average capacity per drive is forecast to increase at a five-year CAGR of 25.5%.

"While the client HDD market continues a long-term secular decline due to rising SSD attach rates, the COVID-19 pandemic has over the near term increased the demand for certain types of HDDs, particularly mobile HDDs as well as capacity-optimized HDDs," said Edward Burns, research director, Hard Disk Drive and Storage Technologies at IDC. "And the demand for storage capacity continues to grow at a steady pace as the world creates and stores more and more data."

The demand for HDDs has increased significantly due to Chia cryptocurrency mining in recent times causing major shortages and increasing retail prices. Seagate and Western Digital are increasing the production of their high-capacity HDD models by increasing the utilization rate on existing production lines in an attempt to satisfy this demand. The companies have limited options to increase production in the short-term due to bulk contracts for 60% - 70% of total production and neither company plans to construct new factories in the immediate future. The total global storage capacity allocated to Chia mining has recently surpassed 20 Exabytes up from 1 Exabyte in April and doesn't show any signs of stopping. The shortages look set to continue with both companies happy to monitor the situation and take advantage of the increased demand before deciding on future expansion plans in the coming years.

HDD manufacturers have tirelessly worked to reinvent the spinning drive technology (and sometimes topology) with increased storage density capabilities (potentiated by the development of technologies such as HAMR (Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording) and MAMR (Microwave Assisted Magnetic Recording). Researchers with the Cambridge Graphene Centre have collaborated with the University of Exeter, India, Switzerland, Singapore and the US to showcase how much life there might still exist in HDDs - if only graphene were to be used.

The research shows how a single graphene layer (researchers tested up to four layers) can be used as a replacement for multiple layers of carbon-based overcoats (COCs), which are deployed on platters to protect them from mechanical damages and corrosion. Current COC thickness stands at only 3 nm, but any existing space between platters presents a bottleneck to the number of platters (and thus storage density) that can be achieved in the HDD world. The researchers demonstrated that graphene enables a two-fold reduction in friction and provides better corrosion and wear protection than current state-of-the-art solutions. In fact, one single graphene layer reduces corrosion by 2.5 times. The researchers further demonstrated that graphene can still be deployed as protective layers in HAMR-totting HDDs - a feat that current carbon-based overcoats can't reproduce, as they fail at the high temperatures arising from the heat-assisted recording. Just one more feather on graphene's utility cap.

Empowering the world's essential data infrastructure, Western Digital Corp. today announced the expansion of the WD Purple family with the WD Purple Pro product line for a new generation of advanced AI-enabled recorders and backend servers.

The worldwide video surveillance camera market is estimated to grow to $44 billion by 2025, up from $23.6 billion in 2019, according to International Data Corporation (IDC). Emerging smart video architectures that capture, store and analyze massive amounts of video data, and perform heavy deep-learning video analytics, are putting an unprecedented level of stress on storage subsystems. The new WD Purple Pro line is designed to handle these workloads with optimized storage performance, capacity, workload capability and reliability for a myriad of devices, including AI-enabled network video recorders (NVRs), video analytics appliances, video analytics servers, storage arrays, and storage/server solutions, including those that perform deep-learning analytics.

Chia, the new crypto-currency that relies on storage as proof-of-work to obtain, rather than processing power, is already causing widespread failures of storage devices that have a finite write endurance, according a report by Chinese tech publication MyDrivers. We've detailed how Chia farming works in an older article. Farming it (i.e. participating in the network that keeps the crypto-currency running, in exchange for the currency itself), takes a toll on your storage device. NAND flash-based devices, such as SSDs and USB flash drives, can be re-written a finite number of times, described by manufacturers as "write endurance" and expressed as TBW (terabytes written), or DWPD (drive writes per day, a unit in which drive size is accounted for).

MyDrivers notes that Chia farmers in China are noticing that typical 256 GB SSDs barely last through 40 drive-write days, 80 days for 512 GB, and about 160 days for 1 TB. Endurance varies among the various SSD brands, and NAND flash type used. Since disk space, and not drive performance is paramount in farming Chia, and magnetic storage devices such as HDDs offer more re-writing, stocks of high-capacity HDDs, including those typically headed to the NVR and security surveilance markets, are being soaked up by Chia farmers.

In the initial days of SSDs, some 11-odd years ago, SSDs were considered unreliable. They'd randomly fail on you, causing irrecoverable data loss. Gaming desktop users usually installed an HDD to go with the SSD in their builds, so they could take regular whole-disk images of the SSD onto the HDD; Microsoft even added a disk imaging feature with Windows 7. Since then, SSDs have come a long way with reliability, are now backed with longer warranties than HDDs, and high endurance. Notebook vendors are increasingly opting for SSDs as the sole storage device in their thin-and-light products. A Backblaze study reveals an interesting finding: SSDs are 21 times more reliable than HDDs.

Backblaze is popular for conducting regular actionable studies on storage device reliability in the enterprise segment, particularly dissecting how each brand of HDD and SSD fares in terms of drive failures or average failure rates (AFR). In a study covering Q1 2021 (January 1 to March 31), Backblaze finds that the AFR of HDDs across brands, stands at 10.56%. In the same period, SSDs across brands lodged an AFR of a stunning 0.58%. In other words, roughly 1 in 10 HDDs failed, compared to roughly 1 in 200 SSDs. Things get interesting when Backblaze looks all the way back to 2013, when it started studying drive reliability.

TerraMaster, a professional brand that specializes in providing innovative storage products for home, businesses and enterprises, proudly announces the redesigned and improved F8-422 model 8-Bay business NAS with built-in 10 GbE LAN. The redesigned F8-422 has a sleeker aluminium chassis without the top-mounted handles for space-conscious users. The built-in high-speed 10GBASE-T RJ45 port offers improved network performance and efficiency over 1GbE networking, a cost-saving upgrade to 10 GbE networking which won't require a 10 GbE NIC card upgrade.

The improved TerraMaster F8-422 NAS now has sleek aluminium housing offers both superb protection and cooling for the drives installed inside. Furthermore, the F8-422 comes equipped with two smart cooling fans that deliver efficient airflow to keep the drives cool at all times during operation. The improved and redesigned F8-422 is ideal for growing small- to medium-sized businesses and enterprise users that require high-speed, high-capacity NAS devices particularly with demanding professionals such as video editors, photographers, 3D animators, and other content creators.

Seagate Technology, a world leader in data storage solutions, today announced two new additions to the company's line of PC gaming storage, the FireCuda Gaming Hard Drive and FireCuda Gaming Hub. Both new external HDD (Hard Disk Drive) solutions were designed for gamers who are looking to level up their battle stations with high—performing, mass capacity upgrades in a sleek enclosure.

Presented in a bold and refined design, the new FireCuda Hard Drive features RGB LED lighting that gamers can customize through Seagate's Toolkit software for an epic gaming atmosphere. It also features Razer Chroma RGB compatibility to synchronize users' Chroma-enabled gaming peripherals. The lightweight FireCuda Hard Drive is designed with USB 3.2 Gen 1 connection for universal compatibility and quick transfer speeds and is USB bus-powered, making it the winning choice for laptop and PC gamers on the go.

A new cryptocurrency going by the name of Chia could bring about a boom in demand for HDD and SSD, which have been kept relatively untouched by the latest mining and supply constraints. However, optimistic predictions of falling prices for NAND (optimistic for consumers, that is) could prove to be erroneous. Apparently, the new cryptocurrency, which saw its whitepaper being published in February 9th and has already led to shortages of high-performance SSDs from China's Jiahe Jinwei.

The cryptocurrency was designed to be mined in SSDs and HDDs, looking to cut on electricity cost from proof of Work (PoW) cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and (still) Ethereum. The intention is for the cryptocurrency to have as broad an appeal as possible, by excluding the need for prohibitive investments in either ASICs (for Bitcoin) or GPUs (for Ethereum and other Dagger/Hashimoto-based calculations). It also leverages that which is most widely available and oftentimes left empty of any workload - storage space. Due to this, it's been reported that Chinese miners are already buying HDDs (4 TB through to 18 TB) and SSDs (mainly NVMe solutions) in bulk. This could prevent technologists from ushering in the current trend of falling storage pricing - if demand becomes as crazy as it has become in the GPU space.

ASRock Rack, a division of ASRock dedicated to server/enterprise products, has today quietly launched a 1U short depth server, equipped with AMD's X570 motherboards, able to accommodate AMD Ryzen 5000 series of processors. The 1U2-X570/2T, as ASRock calls it, features an X570D4I-2T motherboard that is capable of housing any AMD Ryzen and Ryzen Pro 5000 series processor with TDP up to 105 Watts, paired with up to four SO-DIMMs of DDR4 ECC memory. Being a remote desktop/server type of build, the 1U case is not designed to be equipped with any powerful discrete graphics card. There is room for the motherboard, the power supply, and the HDDs located next to the motherboard.

Equipped with an 80-Plus Bronze 265 Watt PSU, the system can handle almost any CPU it is equipped with, two 3.5" drives and two 2.5" 7 mm drives. The motherboard also supports M.2 2280 SSD with PCIe 4.0 protocol support. When it comes to basic graphics output, ASRock Rack has installed an ASPEED AST2500 graphics controller to handle basic video output and display the command line, so you can operate with your server with ease. When it comes to networking, it is equipped with dual RJ45 10 GbE connectors, coming from an Intel X550-AT2 Ethernet controller. For more details, head over to the ASRock Rack 1U2-X570/2T product page.

TerraMaster, a professional brand that specializes in providing innovative storage products, introduces the D2-310 2-bay RAID storage with USB 3.1 5 Gbps port for small home and small office setups. The D2-310 features a high-speed USB 3.1 Gen 1 SUPERSPEED+ 5 Gbps Type-C that's compatible with Windows and Mac systems. The highly-compatible, high-speed Type-C connector deliver speeds of up to 410 MB/s, allowing users to copy 1 GB videos in just 2~3 seconds.

Competitively priced at $159, the D2-310 is perfect for creative professionals like video editors, graphics designers, and animators working at home and in small offices. Its two bays support 2.5" and 3.5" SATA drives and up to 36 TB storage capacity (2x 18 TB 3.5" HDDs). It uses a sturdy aluminium enclosure with superb temperature management and low noise.

Antec Inc., a leading provider of high-performance computer components and accessories for the gaming, PC upgrade and Do-It-Yourself market, is presenting a new ITX case which offers PC enthusiasts the best watercooling options in a small format case. The Dark Cube will soon reach store shelves and online retail outlets in Europe with a competitive MSRP of 209 Euros.

The Dark Cube is a masterpiece of the revolutionary ITX case from Antec. This untraditional case provides powerful support for the latest gaming gear. Despite the small size, the Dark Cube still supports motherboards up to M-ATX. The Dark Cube supports high-end hardware and provides dual front panel options: Users can choose either the tempered glass panel or mesh front panel - whether the emphasis is on maximum airflow performance or on showcasing the gaming components.

Toshiba Electronic Devices & Storage Corporation (Toshiba) announces the 18 TB MG09 Series HDD, Toshiba's first HDD models with energy-assisted magnetic recording. The MG09 Series features Toshiba's third-generation, 9-disk helium-sealed design and Toshiba's innovative Flux Control - Microwave Assisted Magnetic Recording (FC-MAMR) technology, to advance Conventional Magnetic Recording (CMR) density to 2 TB per disk, achieving a total capacity of 18 TB.

Sample shipments of 18 TB MG09 Series HDD to customers are expected to start sequentially at the end of March 2021. With 12.5% more capacity than prior 16 TB models, 18 TB MG09 CMR drives are compatible with the widest range of applications and operating systems. The MG09 are adapted to mixed random and sequential read and write workloads in both cloud-scale and traditional data center use cases. The MG09 features 7,200rpm performance, a 550 TB per year workload rating, and a choice of SATA and SAS interfaces—all in a power-efficient helium-sealed industry-standard, 3.5-inch form factor.

Today we have one interesting research in our hands. According to Trendfocus inc. we have come to know that as much as 333 million Solid State Drives were shipped last year, in 2020. The SSDs have finally overcome HDDs in the number of shipped units, with HDDs shipping 260 million units. In terms of total capacity shipped, HDDs are still winning. The average SSD has less storage capacity compared to the average HDD, thus making the total shipped capacity of all 333 million SSDs "just" 207 Exabytes (EB), while the total shipped capacity of HDDs is a bit over one Zettabyte (ZB).

The average capacity of SSD was as much as 0.67 Terabytes (TB), while the average capacity of HDD was around 4.0 TBs. This is exactly why HDDs are still present as much - simply because they can store much more storage and offer better value as the price per Gigabyte ratio is much lower than the one of an SSD. The SSDs are experiencing Year-over-Year growth of 20.8% in unit shipments, while HDDs are declining at the rate of 18%. When it comes to the total storage capacity shipped on yearly basis, SSDs are growing at the rate of 50%, with HDDs growing at a 13% rate. You can also check out the SSD share of different vendors below.

In 2018, AMD has decided to introduce a neat concept. By combining HDD with SSD, the technology was named StoreMI. Last year, the technology got re-designed from the ground up and now it reflects a completely safe and efficient way to get a faster PC with little effort. Now, StoreMI is copying the most used files onto a faster drive (SSD), and all the Windows calls are redirected to the copied files on the faster drive. By providing optimizations for storage, AMD has managed to provide a nice performance uplift for all owners of AMD Ryzen processors. However, today the company has introduced another update to its technology bringing in even more features.

Starting with the support for Ryzen Threadripper Pro, AMD now supports these processors for TRX40 and WRX80 motherboard chipsets as well. Next in line is a feature that supports SSD partitions. Now SSD partition can be used as a cache device. If you have an AMD X570, B550, 400 Series, X399, TRX40, or WRX80 motherboard, you can use the StoreMI software, which you can download here.