Seagate is lastly providing its largest-ever exhausting drive – a staggering 32TB in a single drive, made potential by tech which makes use of lasers to warmth and funky tiny sections of a platter in a nanosecond …
Seagate has been engaged on heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) expertise for 17 years now, and mentioned final yr that it had lastly cracked it. The Mozaic 3+ 32TB drives have now entered mass manufacturing and are about to go on sale.
The firm explains the issue of attempting to squeeze ever extra information onto a disk platter.
To enhance exhausting drive capability, engineers attempt to match extra information bits, or “grains,” onto every disk platter — they enhance the density of bits crammed into every sq. inch of floor house. More bits on a disk means extra information will be saved.
But when bit density is elevated, the grains are nearer collectively — so shut that the magnetism of every grain can have an effect on the magnetic course of the grains close to it. The stability of every grain at regular temperatures (“thermal stability”) turns into an issue; the one approach to repair that’s to fabricate the disk platter utilizing new supplies that make grains extra thermally steady, so the grains won’t affect one another.
This resolution works — it makes every bit very steady even at room temperature — however it introduces a second downside: how do you pressure a really steady bit to alter its magnetic course once you need it to? How do you write new information onto the exhausting drive, if the grains are thermally very steady?
The firm way back determined the answer was to momentarily warmth a microscopic part of the disk, simply giant sufficient to jot down a single bit of information to it. It got here up with this HAMR strategy again in 2007, and has been engaged on it ever since.
To write new information, a small laser diode hooked up to every recording head momentarily heats a tiny spot on the disk, which permits the recording head to flip the magnetic polarity of a single bit at a time, enabling information to be written. Each bit is heated and cools down in a nanosecond, so the HAMR laser has no affect in any respect on drive temperature, or on the temperature, stability, or reliability of the media total.
Seagate final yr mentioned it had efficiently made a HAMR drive, and has since made them out there to a couple choose prospects. The Mozaic 3+ at the moment are coming into mass manufacturing.
Tom’s Hardware notes that Western Digital is utilizing related tech often known as energy-assisted perpendicular magnetic recording (ePMR) to supply its personal 32TB drives. This additionally heats the platter, however makes use of {an electrical} present quite than a laser to take action.
Right now, the drives are focused at enterprise prospects for information heart use, however as with all storage tech, we are able to anticipate them to filter down into shopper merchandise over time.
Image: Seagate
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