Toshiba has announced they will begin commercializing HDDs based on Showa Denko K.K.'s (SDK) 9th generation perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) platter technology. This latest technology brings about improved storage areal densities in both the 2.5" and 3.5" platters, increasing storage capacities without having to resort to Shingled Magnetic Recording 8SMR), which typically reduces performance. The increased areal density of the new generation technology enables 1 TB 2.5" platters and up to 1.8 TB 3.5" platters, opening the door for PMR HDDs with up to 14 TB capacity sometime in 2018.

The first Toshiba drive to make use of this technology is aimed at ultra-portable laptops that require lots of storage space: the MQ04ABF Series features 5,400 RPM spindle speeds, 1TB of data storage capacity in an ultra-compact 2.5-inch 7.0 mm height form factor. This news is particularly interesting for enterprise-class solutions, however. Today's top-of-the-range enterprise-class 3.5" HDDs can store up to 12 TB of data (14 TB solutions have to make use of SMR). These 12 TB HDDs are based on 8x 8th generation PMR platters featuring ~1.5 TB capacities. With the arrival of the 9th gen PMR platters in 2018, hard drive makers will be able to increase capacities of 8x platter models to 14 TB, while designs with 7x platters can go up to 12 TB.

Do your hard drives become idle when you upgraded your computer? Instead of having them retired, with Apacer AD100 and AD300 external enclosures, they can serve new purposes! Equipped with SATA III and USB 3.1 Gen 1 high speed interface with UASP, both models come with enhanced transmission speeds that are up to 400 MB per second. AD100 is built with high-strength steel and plastic for better protection. AD300, on the other hand, is crafted with aluminum alloy, complete with especially designed cooling holes for better heat dissipation. Both enclosures are built with tool-free designs for fast installation, easily turning the unused hard drives into external storage solutions.

The brand new AD100 and AD300 external enclosures are designed especially for 9.5mm and 7mm 2.5-inch HDD/SSD. The SATA III and USB 3.1 Gen 1 interface with UASP significantly improve the transmission performance which is test proven to reach 400 MB/s when operating with a SSD, representing a 73% increase in read speed compared to an enclosure without UASP. Also, the read speed can reach 100 MB/s when operated with a conventional hard drive. AD100 and AD300 make your unused hard drives become high-speed portable storage solutions.

As computing systems advance and performance is increased, there is also increased need for sufficient storage space to store the results of data processing. Emerging trends and developments in storage technology have seen the promise of new, magnetic-based technologies such as Western Digital's own MAMR technology, which is expected to bring up to 40 TB HDDs in the near future. Until those days are with us, however, improvements on current platter-based technologies are consistent and dependable, with increasing storage space capacities and densities having been delivered by companies in the last few years.

Western Digital has now begun shipping up to 14 TB HDDs, on their UltraStar HS14 family of Enterprise drives, which bring storage areal density up to a staggering 1034 Gb/in². This level of areal storage density was achieved with recourse to SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording) technology, though, which means performance in rewriting already written-to sectors will be somewhat decreased when compared to other HDDs that don't employ this particular technology. These helium-filled HDDs have a 7200 RPM spindle speed and a 512 MB cache to aid offsetting this performance penalty, though. The UltraStar HS14 HDDs also offer numerous technologies to increase reliability and durability of the drive, which, with its Enterprise classification, promise to deliver 2.5 million hours MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures) accompanied by a five-year warranty. Available interfaces are SATA 6 Gb/s and SAS 12 Gb/s, with the drives being able to sustain transfer rates in the order of 233 MB/s.

Seagate Technology plc. announced today its SkyHawk AI hard disk drive (HDD), the first drive created specifically for artificial intelligence (AI) enabled video surveillance solutions. Building on Seagate's 10-year track record of delivering surveillance optimized storage performance, SkyHawk AI provides unprecedented bandwidth and processing power to manage always-on, data-intensive workloads, while simultaneously analyzing and recording footage from multiple HD cameras.

Analytics on video surveillance hardware is growing exponentially, forecasted to increase from 27.6 million shipments in 2016 to 126 million shipments in 2021 (Cropley, 2017), as hardware manufacturers continue to include analytics sensors on network video recorders (NVRs). This will only increase as AI - particularly deep learning and machine learning applications, such as facial recognition and analyzing irregularities in behavior - become increasingly prevalent. In parallel, the need for fast video analytics will continue to rise, increasing the workload burden on NVR storage.

Hot on the heels of Western Digital's announcement of an MAMR breakthrough enabling 40 TB hard drives in the near future, rival Seagate announced a magnetic storage technology breakthrough of its own, dubbed HAMR (heat-assisted magnetic recording). This technology will enable the development of hard drives with over 20 terabytes (TB) unformatted capacity by the end of 2018, which is a faster ramp-up than WD's 2019 timeline for the first MAMR-based drives. The first Seagate HAMR-based HDDs will ship with capacities of 20 TB, with the company promising 40 TB drives by 2023, well ahead of the 2025 timeline for 40 TB drives promised by WD.

Seagate HAMR is a fundamentally different technology than Western Digital MAMR. While MAMR relies on a spin-torque oscillator to generate a microwave field that burns finer magnetized bits on the disk, thereby increasing areal densities to 40 Tb per square inch, Seagate HAMR uses an extremely fine laser to heat up the RW head, creating finer magnetized bits. The physical layer of each bit is heated and cooled within nanoseconds, and hence a HAMR RW head draws relatively lower amounts of power - up to 8W for a random-write operation (the most power-consuming operation for a drive). Seagate promises RW endurance of 2 PB.

At its "Innovating to Fuel the Next Decade of Big Data" event today, Western Digital Corp. announced a breakthrough innovation for delivering ultra-high capacity hard disk drives (HDDs) to meet the future demands of Big Data with proven data center-level reliability. The event, held at the company's headquarters in Silicon Valley, included a demonstration of the world's first microwave-assisted magnetic recording (MAMR) HDD and presentations from company executives and the inventor of MAMR technology, Professor Jimmy Zhu from Carnegie Mellon University. The company also showcased advancements in micro actuation and Damascene recording head technology. Western Digital expects to begin shipping ultra-high capacity MAMR HDDs in 2019 for use in data centers that support Big Data applications across a full range of industries.

"As the volume, velocity, variety, value and longevity of both Big Data and Fast Data grow, a new generation of storage technologies are needed to not only support ever-expanding capacities, but ultimately help our customers analyze and garner insights into our increasingly connected universe of data," said Mike Cordano, president and chief operating officer at Western Digital. "Our ground-breaking advancement in MAMR technology will enable Western Digital to address the future of high capacity storage by redefining the density potential of HDDs and introduce a new class of highly reliable, 'ultra-high capacity' drives. We have a proven track record for identifying, investing in and delivering advanced technologies that create new product categories and enable the world to realize the possibilities of data. Five years ago we introduced our HelioSeal, helium-filled drive technology. Since then, we have shipped more than 20 million helium drives. That type of leadership and innovation continues today and we aim to leverage it well into the future."

Seagate Technology plc. announced today its IronWolf, IronWolf Pro and BarraCuda Pro hard drives are now available at capacities up to 12TB. Offering the highest capacity, reliability and performance in the industry among network-attached storage (NAS) and desktop HDDs, Seagate's 12TB IronWolf and BarraCuda Pro drives further extend the capabilities of the leading Seagate Guardian Series to meet the growing data needs of large enterprise business, small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), and creative professionals.

Across the globe, we are experiencing a massive increase in the volume of data created, with a recent study by IDC and Seagate finding that data creation will swell to a total of 163 zettabytes (ZB) by 2025, 10x more than today. Seagate's latest portfolio of 12TB drives are designed for today's media storage needs - including augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), 4K resolution and 360-degree videos - and offer scalability for the future with increased space and speed.

Western Digital Corp., a global data storage technology and solutions leader, today announced that it is providing cloud and hyperscale data centers the capacity required by big data applications with the world's first 14TB enterprise-class hard drive featuring host-managed shingled magnetic recording (SMR) technology. Western Digital's HGST-branded Ultrastar Hs14 delivers 40 percent more capacity and more than twice the sequential write performance of its SMR predecessor, enabling more economical and efficient capture of the growing volume and variety of data.

The future is built on the insights and predictive power of big data. As data grows exponentially, storing it all in an affordable and accessible manner is an ongoing challenge for enterprise and cloud service data center operators. With a focus on total cost of ownership (TCO), the factors of capacity per rack, power consumption, cooling, maintenance, and acquisition cost are all paramount. To combat the big data challenge, Ultrastar Hs14 drives deliver unprecedented capacity leadership and online watt/TB power efficiency for extremely low TCO by harnessing two core complimentary technologies - fourth generation HelioSeal technology, and second generation host-managed SMR - along with enterprise-class reliability.

Toshiba Electronic Devices & Storage Corporation today announced the addition of an 10-terabyte (TB) SATA model to its MG06 series of 3.5-inch, enterprise capacity class hard disk drives (HDD). Shipments start from today. The continuing progress of digitization, most recently the quickening expansion of IoT and the increasing reliance on cloud services means that more information is being generated and stored than ever before, and that the rate of its creation only continues to increase. The data centers and cloud-based services that use this data constantly require higher-capacity, higher-performance HDDs.

Toshiba's MG06 series HDDs meet industry requirements by deploying an improved magnetic recording head and disk magnetic layer, and now deliver up to 10TB of capacity with air-based HDDs, a 25% increase over the maximum capacity of the earlier MG05 series. The HDDs achieve a sustained transfer rate of 237 MiB/s, and a 25% improvement in operating life that boosts MTTF to 2,500,000 hours. These improvements in capacity, speed and reliability can contribute to the lower system TCO (total cost of ownership).

Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ: WDC), a global data storage technology and solutions leader, has expanded its WD Gold hard drive lineup to include a 12 TB capacity model, designed to address demanding Big Data workloads. The new high-capacity hard drives provide for increased storage density in a range of enterprise and cloud storage applications. Whether data comes in the form of confidential consumer data, healthcare records or business intelligence, WD Gold hard drives provide a no-compromise storage solution that modern day IT managers need.

"As data growth continues unabated, retaining more of that data and generating meaningful insight from it becomes increasingly important," said Brendan Collins, vice president, Devices business unit, Western Digital. "Businesses that most effectively extract value from operational data are able to make smarter decisions, improve business outcomes and ultimately gain a competitive advantage."

Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. (TAEC), a committed technology leader, today announces its new MQ04 Series 1 TB HDD, which is compatible with notebook PCs, game systems, all-in-one slim-line desktop systems, set-top box appliances, and other applications requiring high capacity and durability storage.

The MQ04 Series single-disk model delivers 1 TB of data storage capacity in an ultra-compact 2.5-inch, 7mm height form factor. The drive's 6 Gbit/s SATA interface and 5,400 rotational speed combined with a large 128 MiB buffer and consistent seek performance, result in a 34 percent higher internal transfer rate performance when compared to the previous 1TB MQ01 Series models. The new model is also quieter and weighs less than prior generations.

Toshiba has announced immediate availability of their new 8 TB solution for you storage-mongers out there. The TX 300 brings an 8 TB, 7200 RPM HDD to an interesting $260 price-point. Yes, we know everyone would love to have that amount of storage even in a good, old SATA III SSD for about the same price - but now is not the time to daydream. For the foreseeable future, the best option for cheap storage in such quantities lies with our old and (somewhat) trusty platter-based storage tech.

Storage options are available at 4 TB, 5 TB, 6 TB and 8 TB with 128 MB cache. These drives feature perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR), which allows for higher areal density than traditional (now seldom used) longitudinal recording. Additional security and reliability features have been baked in on these particular models - the motors are attached to both the top and bottom of the unit and there is an increased attention to shock and vibration dampening. These drives are available now, and the 8 TB option will set you back the aforementioned $260. I'll save you from whipping up the old calculator, because at this storage capacity and pricing, price per GB stands at a mere $0.0318.

Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. (TAEC), a committed technology leader, today announces the X300 3.5-inch internal hard drive in 8 TB capacity. Compared to the P300 series with capacities up to 3 TB, the X300 Series delivers extreme performance and robust capacity for creative and professional applications including graphic design, animation, photo and video editing, and PC gaming.

The new 8 TB model features Toshiba's cache technology, a self-contained cache algorithm with on-board buffer management, which optimizes cache allocation during read/write to provide high-level performance in real time. The X300 Series is offered in 4 TB, 5 TB, 6 TB and 8 TB capacities, all with a higher 128 MB cache than P300 series, ensuring fast data access. Available in a 3.5-inch form factor, the X300 performs at 7,200 RPM and a SATA connection up to 6 Gbit/s. Compatible with most major brands of Serial ATA enabled desktop computers, the Toshiba X300 high-precision head positioning supported by advanced format technology (physical 4 KB sector) and dual stage actuator technology delivers high storage density and capacity.

Toshiba Corporation's Storage & Electronic Devices Solutions Company today announced the launch of AL14SX Series, new additions to its line-up of enterprise performance hard disk drives (HDD) for mission critical server and storage applications. Sample shipments start today.

The AL14SX Series of 15,000RPM 2.5-inch drives features a 12 Gbit/s SAS interface. Available models are 4K native (4Kn) model and 512 emulation (512e) model that feature Advanced Format Sector Technologies, and 512 native (512n) model optimized for legacy applications and hypervisor environments. The AL14SX Series delivers a suitable choice for customers' diverse applications.

It appears that although MLC NAND-based SSDs have many advantages to HDD's from a physical-reliability point of view, the old spinning rust drives might still have one advantage over SSDs: A specially crafted write operation can't corrupt your data.

That's what a new report from Carnegie Mellon University, Seagate, and ETH Zürich is showing: That MLC-based SSD Drives are vulnerable to data-corrupting attacks as simple as a specially crafted write operation.

In a bid to increase options for budget-minded gamers, Acer has introduced the Nitro 5 gaming laptop, whose wealth of configurations start at a respectable $800. Choosing any kind of gaming-focused laptop over building your own desktop will always look like bad business, but how much one values mobility mays edge the decision towards one side or the other.

Specs-wise, it's a mix of respectable with the bare minimum: it features a 15.6-inch FHD IPS display, up to 32 GB of DDR4 2400 MHz memory, and is available in configurations featuring Intel's Core i5 or Core i7 processors paired with an NVIDIA GTX 1050 Ti graphics card, or your choice of an AMD 7th-gen A-series FX, A12 or A10 APUs, paired a Radeon RX550 GPU. Some models will include PCIe SSDs (up to 512GB) with up to 2TB of optional HDD storage. Ports include 1x Gigabit Ethernet, 1x USB 3.1 Type-C, 1x USB 3.0, 2x USB 2.0 ports, and 1x HDMI output. The Nitro 5 also supports 802.11ac Wi-Fi with a 2x2 MIMO antenna. The Nitro 5 will be available in North America starting July 1. Acer did not release detailed pricing, so there's no idea of what the $800 configuration will net you spec-wise (though an AMD and RX 550 are pretty much guaranteed). The Nitro 5 will also be available in the EMEA in August, starting at a much less interesting €1,139.

Western Digital Corp. today announced that it has begun shipping its fourth-generation helium-based hard drive with its 12TB HGST-branded Ultrastar He12 hard drive. The Ultrastar He12 12TB hard drive is the next generation of the company's award-winning high capacity enterprise-class drive with HelioSeal technology, providing customers with a data storage solution addressing the expansive information management needs and demanding performance requirements of today's enterprise, cloud and hyperscale workloads.

"We have again raised the bar in enterprise storage with the industry's most advanced and cost-effective highest capacity helium HDD storage solutions," said Mark Grace, senior vice president of devices at Western Digital. "The Ultrastar He12 hard drive advances Western Digital's portfolio leveraging the HelioSeal platform to deliver industry-leading high capacity HDD storage with exceptional power efficiency. Western Digital has shipped over 15M helium-based high capacity drives to date and continues to support our customers with outstanding reliability and Quality of Service (QoS). Our industry-leading data center portfolio enables customers across the spectrum to meet their evolving and dynamic data center demand."

Toshiba Corporation's Storage & Electronic Devices Solutions Company today announced the addition of an 8 TB SATA model to its MG05 series of 3.5-inch form-factor, enterprise capacity class of hard disk drives (HDD). Shipments start from today. Alongside the expansion of IoT (Internet of Things) and the spread of cloud services, the volume of data generated and accumulated continues to increase, and higher-capacity, higher-performance HDDs are constantly required in cloud data centers and their storage systems.

To meet these requirements, the new 8 TB model offers an approximately 33% increase in maximum capacity from the 6 TB of the prior MG04 series. It also delivers an approximately 12% increase in sustained data rate to 230 MB/s and an approximately 42% improvement in MTTF to 2,000,000 hours. These improvements in capacity, speed and reliability can contribute to the reduction of TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) of the system.

Western Digital Corporation, a storage industry leader, today announced the availability of the WD Purple 10 TB HDD, the newest member of its high-capacity hard drive line for surveillance applications. According the IHS Markit, anticipated growth of 4K-compliant and high-resolution network cameras over the next few years is driving higher demand for surveillance-class storage to support systems featuring these technologies. With increased capacity and proven leading-edge technology, the WD Purple 10 TB HDD is optimized for 24x7 video surveillance systems and up to 64 high-definition (HD) cameras in home and small business security environments.

"Advanced imaging technology advancements are expanding the value that video surveillance provides for applications ranging from retail and public safety monitoring to smart-city infrastructure, all of which are driving new storage needs," said Brendan Collins, vice president of product marketing. "Our new 10 TB drive inherits the high performance, reliability and endurance qualities of our WD Purple family, with maximum capacity to offer VARs, integrators and consumers a 4K-ready solution for current and next-generation surveillance systems."

Market intelligence analysis company TRENDFOCUS revealed in its latest blog post how SSD market has increased by up to 36% in the last four quarters, with price hikes after prices hikes accompanying increasing demand (and sales) of the speedy storage media. And TRENDFOCUS warns that these price hikes are like here to stay until 2017 has run its course, with projections of price reductions only materializing in early 2018. This should put some brakes towards the trend of including SSD storage on mainstream OEM computers and laptops, as the price increase from adding this type of storage would bring prices beyond the mainstream. Likewise, the aggressive ratio at which SSDs were replacing HDDs as storage media as correspondingly declined a bit, though this move still stays strong and isn't likely to (nor should it) fully subside.

The company also sees an increasing pricing delta between conventional SATA-based solutions and their higher-performing PCIe counterparts, with the pricing of PCIe-based SSDs increasing more than those that leverage SATA connections. TRENDFOCUS reports how 2017 pricing hinges on 3D NAND ramping as predicted this year, with higher prices in the demand-heavy back-to-school season) if this ramp fails. The company still feels confident about an eventual return to quarterly takedowns on SSD pricing, coeteris paribus, come 2018.

Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. (TAEC), a committed technology leader, today announces its first MN Series HDDs, bridging the value gap between top-end enterprise capacity HDDs and entry-level desktop HDDs, while still delivering 7,200RPM rotational latency performance. The MN series delivers up to 8TB capacity in a 3.5-inch form factor for a broad range of file and object storage applications. With a 6 Gbit/s SATA interface, 7,200 rotational speed, 1,000,000 hour MTTF rating, and a rated annual workload of 180TB transferred, the new HDD series delivers the performance and reliability needed for file and object storage workloads that typically utilize sequential data transfer operations. The drives are designed for 24/7 power-on operation and feature rotational vibration compensation technology to help provide consistent performance in tower and low-density style multi-drive enclosures, such as small NAS platforms.

"Many customers with predominantly file-oriented and fixed-content sequential write and read workloads are looking for cost-effective capacity for moderate workload storage applications," said Scott Wright, director of HDD marketing at Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. With our new MN Series HDD models we are providing a workload range within the high workload data center work-horse Enterprise Capacity HDDs and relatively low workloads associated with client HDD models."

The woes for the trusty old HDD continue, as Seagate, one of the world's biggest players on the HDD manufacturing field, has confirmed they are closing up one of their largest plants. The factory, located in Suzhou, China, is one of the company's largest HDD production epicenters, and its closure will significantly reduce the company's HDD output - a step in the company's purported "optimizations" towards reducing their HDD production capabilities from 55-60 million HDDs per quarter to around 35-40 million. Production and demand's age-old feud are once again taking their toll, as demand for spindle-drive technology subsides on the wake of SSDs increased performance and consecutive price declines, with most laptops now shipping with either SSD-based storage or cheaper, yet less power-hungry, eMMC solutions.

At CES 2017, ECS showcased a number of ultra-compact form-factor PCs. basically building upon their previous LIVA family releases, the new LIVA feature either Intel's Apollo Lake SoCs (with Celeron Processors N3350 / N3450 / N4200 and 6 W TDP) on the Z and ZE, or Intel's Kaby Lake-U processors (Intel Core i3-7100U / i5-7200U / i7-7500U and 15W TDP) on the Z Plus.

The Z Plus is obviously the most powerful of the lot, supporting DDR4 memory (the Z and ZE support only DDR3), having better integrated graphics (Intel's HD 620 versus the Intel HD 500/500 on the Z and ZE models), and having an expected extra energy consumption (an external 65 W adapter on the Z Plus versus a 40 W external adapter on the other two models).

In a realm of ever-expanding storage needs, and increasingly constrained time slices, being able to quickly transfer or back-up your files and carry them with you is still an important metric. Even in an increasingly cloud-powered world, sometimes, simply being able to care about a piece of hardware, and not losing a password or having your cloud account hacked, still pulls its weight in some users' considerations. Sharkoon is looking to address those users' needs with the release of the Rapid-Case 2.5" USB 3.1 Type-C, a DIY enclosure which is sure to give your old HDDs (or even SSDs) a new lease of life.

Consumers are creating more higher-resolution and higher volumes of content than ever before. From action cam enthusiasts to selfie lovers to doting parents who capture every milestone moment on their 4K smartphones, the need for even more space to store photos, movies, music and content-and take it on the go-is growing. While data storage demands are ever-increasing, so is the need to organize, centralize and back up that data.

With today's launch of the Backup Plus Portable 5TB drive-the largest capacity mobile drive on the market-Seagate is helping its customers better manage their massive deluge of data. This new storage solution is made possible thanks to Seagate's new BarraCuda internal drive, featuring its breakthrough 2.5-inch 1TB platter technology announced last month.