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After a few a long time of discuss, Seagate introduced earlier this 12 months that it was delivery samples of giant 32TB exhausting drives utilizing heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR). The brand new type of drive expertise makes use of lasers to warmth disk platters throughout writing, making it doable to retailer extra knowledge on a disk with out growing its bodily measurement.
However there’s nonetheless a bit extra capability to be wrung out of older and more-proven recording applied sciences like perpendicular (or typical) magnetic recording (PMR/CMR, usually used interchangeably) and shingled magnetic recording (SMR); Western Digital introduced this week that it is making ready to pattern large 28TB exhausting drives primarily based on these applied sciences, slightly over a 12 months after saying its first 26TB mannequin.
In line with Tom’s {Hardware}, WD makes use of energy-assisted perpendicular magnetic recording (ePMR) to suit as much as 24TB of information on a single drive. SMR permits magnetic tracks to overlap barely (just like the shingles on a roof), permitting barely extra knowledge to suit onto the identical bodily platters on the expense of write efficiency—this boosts the capability of those drives to 28TB.
Throughout its most up-to-date earnings name, Western Digital CEO David Goeckeler reiterated that 28TB wasn’t the top for its ePMR and SMR-based exhausting drives. Previous roadmaps have indicated that 30TB and 32TB SMR drives also needs to be doable, although these drives aren’t prepared for sampling to Western Digital’s clients but.
Western Digital is engaged on HAMR-capable drives, too, however the firm does not suppose they’re going to be obtainable in quantity till late 2025 on the earliest. Seagate expects to ship its first 32TB HAMR drives earlier than then, and the corporate has already talked about HAMR drives as massive as 50TB being examined in its labs.
Western Digital’s earnings are buffeted by a few of the identical forces affecting different PC {hardware} and software program firms like Intel and Microsoft. The corporate’s earnings for This autumn 2023 have been down 5 % 12 months over 12 months, principally pushed by an 18 % drop in income for its cloud enterprise. Its consumer and shopper companies—drives bought to PC makers and on to customers—grew barely. This time final 12 months, all three divisions have been down by double digits in comparison with 2022, so the post-pandemic PC droop could possibly be bottoming out.
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