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.

Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. (TAEC) today announces that Toshiba, a committed technology leader, led all HDD companies in year-on-year Nearline HDD average capacity growth in 2020. Toshiba followed up an astounding 55% year-on-year growth in 2019 with an impressive 35% year-on-year growth in 2020 to lead the industry for a second consecutive year, according to TRENDFOCUS, Inc.'s data.

"Toshiba has done an admirable job of leveraging its industry-first 9-disk helium design to introduce competitive Nearline HDD products in a timely fashion. This has been the cornerstone in the company's ability to launch higher capacity Nearline HDD programs," stated John Chen, Vice President at TRENDFOCUS, Inc. "Toshiba's 9-disk helium-sealed HDD platform has enabled the company to achieve the highest five-year Compound Annual Growth Rates for Nearline HDD Units, Exabytes, and Average Capacity shipped through 2020."

Proliferation of digital content being created and replicated has led to an explosive growth of data centers around the world. Demand for storage has fueled HDD Exabyte growth, and for the first time in 2020, HDD Exabyte shipments topped 1ZB¹ across all storage applications, from edge to core. The meteoric climb in capacity shipped is a testament to the HDD industry's ability to deliver the most cost-effective and performance delivering storage medium in the market.

Synology Inc. today unveiled the next generation of RackStation units that support its highly successful backup, virtualization storage, surveillance, and remote work solutions. In a company first, it also announced the release of its HAT5300 series of high-performance enterprise hard drives specially engineered for Synology deployments.

The 2U 12-bay RS3621RPxs and RS3621xs+, and the 3U 16-bay RS4021xs+ are designed for SMBs that require high-performance general-purpose storage. Synology's newest devices provide a reliable platform for data-intensive applications such as large-scale backup, ISCSi SAN storage, on-premises collaboration solutions, and video surveillance deployments.

Teaming with 343 Industries, Seagate today announced the latest addition to its popular line of storage for gamers - Game Drive for Xbox Halo: Master Chief Limited Edition. Celebrating the legendary Master Chief from the Halo video game franchise, this limited edition Game Drive features a one-of-a-kind sleek case design that celebrates the Master Chief John-117. A limited Master Chief vinyl die-cut sticker set also comes in the box for fans to collect. The new drive is available in 2 TB and 5 TB capacities so gamers can install more games and downloadable game content by balancing their gaming workload between console and external HDD.

Gamers can easily begin their Halo journey as the Game Drive is compatible with and automatically recognized by the full family of Xbox One devices, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S consoles, and easily installed in under two minutes through Xbox OS. It is USB 3.2 Gen 1 bus powered and does not need a separate power cord to play so fans can unite in their mission from anywhere. Users can play legacy games and archive next generation games on the Game Drive which can store more than 502 downloaded games.

In its latest earnings call, Seagate, a manufacturer of high-capacity drives, has revealed several interesting points about its upcoming releases of next-generation hard drives. More specifically, the company has disclosed a shift to a new generation of HDDs based on so-called heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) technology. This technology is set to bring many improvements compared to the one currently used by Seagate's rivals like Western Digital. The rivaling company uses energy-assisted perpendicular magnetic recording (ePMR) and microwave-assisted (MAMR) technologies and it already has a 20 TB drive in the offering. Seagate announced that they will unveil a 20 TB HDD in December this year, with the use of HAMR technology, which will bring many improvements like better speed and more efficient disk read/write.

"We remain on track to ship 20-TB HAMR drives starting in December, which is an important milestone, as we believe HAMR technology will be the industry's path to scaling a real density and increasing drive capacities," said Dave Mosley, CEO of Seagate. "Seagate will be the first to ship this crucial technology with a path to deliver 50-TB HAMR drives forecast in 2026."

Toshiba announces the Toshiba MG08-D Series HDDs, designed for a wide variety of business-critical applications, such as email and CRM (Customer Resource Management), data analysis for business intelligence, small-medium business servers, and data-retention and compliance archiving.

Toshiba's 7th generation air mechanical design provides better power efficiency and a lower component count to deliver better total cost of ownership than its earlier generation models. The new series features 4 TB, 6 TB and 8 TB models, in both SATA and SAS interfaces. The new 4 TB1 models are available in 512e, 4Kn and 512n sector models, and the 6 TB and 8 TB models are available in 512e and 4Kn sector models, assuring plug-and-play interoperability for applications using prior 4 TB models.

Empowering the world's most essential data infrastructures, Western Digital Corp. today announced that Dropbox Inc., a leading global collaboration platform, is one of the first to qualify the Ultrastar DC HC650 20 TB, host-managed, shingled magnetic recording (SMR) hard disk drives (HDD). With Western Digital SMR HDDs serving as the storage foundation for its custom-built, multi-exabyte storage platforms, Dropbox continues its strategic path, taking advantage of the highest storage densities with the lowest TCO without sacrificing data durability and availability for its 600 million+ online customers.

"We've been working with Western Digital for many years, and throughout several phases of our storage platform development," said Andrew Fong, vice president of engineering, Dropbox. "Online tools and services are more important than ever before, so we need to be able to quickly innovate, expand functionality and scale to help stay competitive. We look forward to deploying these higher capacity 20 TB SMR hard drives to further our cost savings and to provide our customers with even more value. Western Digital is an important strategic partner and we look forward to continuously pushing cloud infrastructure boundaries together."

The memory market is expected to remain in a state of oversupply during Q4 2020 for both DRAM and NAND flash according to a new report from TrendForce. This oversupply will mean ~10% lower prices for memory in Q4 2020 with further price drops in 2021, this will result in falling SSD prices of 10-15%. These price drops in the consumer market will likely result in the lowest SSD pricing seen to date. These reductions were mainly driven by Huawei losing access to foreign DRAM and NAND memory which wasn't fully taken up by other smartphone manufacturers leading to an access of supply. These lower SSD prices will help accelerate the decline of HDDs in consumer devices as price parity gets closer.

TerraMaster, a professional brand that specializes in providing innovative storage products including network-attached storage (NAS) devices, launches the D8 Thunderbolt 3 8-bay professional-grade RAID storage. Designed for professional creators, the TerraMaster D8 Thunderbolt 3 offers large storage capacity support of up to 128 TB along with fast read and write speeds delivered by Thunderbolt 3 technology.

The TerraMaster D8 Thunderbolt 3 via its 40 Gbps Thunderbolt 3 interface can deliver speeds of up to 1600 MB/s. It is the perfect storage solution for non-linear editing applications such as 4K video editing, allowing professional creators to enjoy rapid video workflows. The D8 Thunderbolt 3 also offers high scalability allowing creators to daisy-chain more than five devices in a single Thunderbolt 3 connection. Creators can daisy-chain up to two 4K monitors to create a smart working space with large displays for professional video editing and productivity.

Apricorn, the leading manufacturer of software-free, 256-bit AES XTS hardware-encrypted USB data storage devices, today announced the release of an 18 TB version of its Aegis Padlock DT FIPS Desktop Drives. Continuing its history of innovation and industry leadership, Apricorn is the first to bring an 18 TB encrypted drive to market, delivering high performance and mass capacity.

The Padlock DT FIPS Desktop Drives come with AegisWare - the proprietary firmware and feature set recognizable of Apricorn's Aegis Secure Drives and Secure Keys. Consistent with the Apricorn line of secure drives, all passwords and commands are entered by way of the device's onboard keypad. One hundred percent of the authentication and encryption processes take place within the device itself and never involve software or share passwords / encryption keys with its host computer. Additionally, all have military grade 256-bit AES XTS encryption so firmware is locked down and can't be updated or modified, defending against malware and ensuring data remains secure and accessible only by the user.

Seagate Technology plc, a world leader in data storage and management solutions, today announced it is shipping 18 TB SkyHawk Artificial Intelligence drives in volume. SkyHawk AI is the world's first purpose-built hard drive for artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled Surveillance solutions, enabling quicker and smarter decisions. The new drive supports deep learning and machine learning workload streams for Edge applications with ImagePerfectAI.

The capacity to retain more data over time is required for deep learning systems to become smarter and more accurate in their predictive analysis, and behavior analysis requires significantly more data than traditional video capture. SkyHawk AI simultaneously sustains 32 AI streams alongside 64 video streams and supports multi-bay NVR and AI-enabled NVR. SkyHawk AI offers a 550 TB/year workload rate, more than 3× the workload rate of standard surveillance hard drives in order to manage data deluge in complex video security system environments without sacrificing performance. This drive intelligently adapts between traditional video workloads and video+AI workloads.

Enabling customers to design and build solutions for a variety of smart video workloads, Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ: WDC) today announced its expanded family of WD Purple storage solutions, including the industry's highest capacity 18 TB surveillance HDD for DVRs, NVRs and analytics appliances, and the 1 TB WD Purple SC QD101 microSD card for AI-enabled cameras. Setting the bar for smart video applications, all WD Purple drives are optimized to help reduce frame loss and pixelation, improve overall video playback and enhance streaming for 24x7 workloads - from ingest to backup and long-term storage - as the industry broadens the use of deep learning and analytics.

From commercial buildings to municipalities, businesses are accelerating adoption of AI and deep learning to enable automation and better efficiencies that ultimately help create a safer and better experience for employees, customers and communities. Deep learning algorithms, hungry for data generated by IoT and edge ecosystems, demand higher resolution for better accuracy, increasing the need for storage capacity in cameras and NVRs. In its recent report, Video Surveillance & Analytics Intelligence Service, July 2020, Omdia states that shipments of cameras enabled with deep learning algorithms will continue growing at a five-year (2019-2024) CAGR of 67 percent, and NVRs enabled with deep-learning analytics will grow at 37 percent. Meanwhile, video analytics appliances shipments are expected to grow at 43 percent. In addition, a 2020 Western Digital-commissioned survey of North American security system integration companies found that 76 percent of them see video analytics and AI as playing an ever-increasing role in their deployments.

Western Digital Corp. today announced a significant step in the ongoing implementation of its diversified storage portfolio strategy by forming separate product business units for its Flash and HDD technology assets. The Flash business and the HDD business will each be led by a general manager and will align the company's diversified portfolio to an acceleration strategy designed for growth, profitability and development agility. By delivering both Flash and HDD market-leading innovation through highly focused product development organizations, Western Digital's strategy positions the company to leverage its strong go-to-market and operational synergies and uniquely address broad customer storage needs from edge devices to cloud infrastructure.

Also today, Western Digital announced the appointment of Robert Soderbery as executive vice president and general manager of its new Flash business unit. A thirty-year technology and business veteran, Soderbery is responsible for all Flash portfolio strategy, product development and business results and will lead engineering and product management teams focused on delivering the company's Flash innovation. The company confirmed an executive search is underway for a general manager who will lead its HDD product business.

Seagate Technology, a world leader in data storage and management solutions, today announced the results of a global survey of 3,000 small and medium sized business (SMB) decision-makers. The survey, commissioned by Seagate, reveals that despite economic headwinds, existing SMB IT infrastructure for many SMBs has shown resilience, and a majority of SMBs believe business data will play an important role in their long-term recovery plans. The company also announced an update to its IronWolf and IronWolf Pro Network Attached Storage (NAS) drive lines, aimed at home and small office environments, with new 18 TB capacity HDD and new SATA SSD models. These new drives deliver unrivaled speed, capacity, and stamina to bring reliable, scalable, and consistent performance to NAS solutions.

Despite the rapid and unexpected shift to remote working during the COVID-19 pandemic, existing SMB IT infrastructure proved resilient, according to Seagate research. More than half (54%) of SMB decision-makers reported no difficulty in accessing files or company data remotely, and 61% reported similar productivity levels to when their employees are in the office. 45% of SMB decision-makers reported their company's existing data infrastructure was more resilient than expected during the pandemic. All SMBs included in the study have fewer than 250 employees, and the majority have fewer than 50.