Seagate Technology, a world leader in mass-data storage infrastructure solutions, launched the new Seagate SkyHawk AI 24 TB hard disk drive (HDD) for the video and imaging applications (VIA) market. Following the recent launch of the company's capacity-leading Seagate Exos X24 24 TB conventional magnetic recording (CMR)-based hard drive, the new SkyHawk AI 24 TB addresses the surging mass data needs of the edge security industry.

As a surge of AI-powered applications are implemented by organizations, performance and total cost of ownership (TCO) are increasingly contingent on the organization's ability to efficiently store and access massive sets of data. Seagate's SkyHawk AI 24 TB is an advanced video-optimized drive specifically designed for network video recorders (NVRs) enabled with AI for edge security applications and meets the challenge of today's advanced systems to analyze and record video footage while simultaneously supporting GPU analytics.

As new applications, use cases and connected devices multiply, Western Digital's enterprise-class hard disk drives (HDDs) remain critical for helping data center customers design more cost-efficient, scalable and sustainable infrastructure. When combined with the emergence of generative AI and the multitude of innovative applications it is enabling, the demand for high-capacity, low-power and reliable storage is poised to surge.

Western Digital leverages numerous technology innovations - ePMR, OptiNAND, UltraSMR and more - to deliver predictable capacity growth in scalable, highly reliable products. Western Digital is now shipping its new 10-disk 24 TB CMR HDD family for hyperscale, cloud and enterprise data center customers. Sampling since August, the new 28 TB SMR HDD is also ramping, adding to the company's SMR leadership position and momentum as its 26 TB SMR HDD exabyte shipments reached nearly half of its data center exabytes shipped in the first quarter fiscal year 2024.

Synology is proud to announce the launch of its Plus Series SATA HDDs, specifically designed to meet the reliability, endurance, and performance requirements of 24/7 storage in Synology entry-level and mainstream systems. These hard drives have been rigorously tested and validated with Synology systems to ensure consistent performance in multi-user environments. The Plus Series joins the existing Enterprise Series lineup of hard drives, bringing the convenience of Synology hard disk drives to even more users.

"Designed with Synology systems in mind, these drives are perfect for users who need dependable storage with the added convenience of DSM firmware updates and a single window of support for all system issues," said Peggy Weng, Product Manager at Synology. Synology Plus Series HDDs offer a perfect balance of reliability and convenience for home and small office users, providing a dependable solution to meet their storage needs, whether for file sharing, data backup, or surveillance recording.

Today, at the NAB 2023 conference, Seagate Technology Holdings plc, a world leader in data storage infrastructure solutions, introduced the new Seagate IronWolf Pro 22 TB conventional magnetic recording (CMR)-based hard disk drive (HDD). The company's highest capacity CMR HDD, the new drives deliver market-leading capacity, dependability, and powerful performance for multi-user workloads and enterprise RAID solutions

Optimised with Seagate's AgileArray technology, the new Seagate IronWolf Pro 22 TB HDD provides exceptional network-attached-storage (NAS), direct-attached-storage (DAS) performance and RAID reliability in multi-bay and multi-user environments. With user workload rates of 550 TB/year, the IronWolf Pro 22 TB HDD enables commercial and enterprise NAS users to seamlessly store, share, and collaborate on large amounts of data over a network. It also offers an SDR of up to 285 MB/s so users can seamlessly share files, back up, and tackle heavy workloads in multi-user NAS environments. With built-in rotational vibration (RV) sensors to provide RV mitigation, the HDD consistently delivers high performance and reliability in multi-bay systems.

Western Digital has launched its first dual actuator hard drive, in the shape of the Ultrastar DC HS760 Hard Drive, which is currently only available in a single 20 TB SKU. This places WD's new drive head to head with Seagates Exos X20 drives, although Seagate offers an 18 and a 20 TB SKU. WD offers the Ultrastar DC HS760 with a SAS interface, whereas Seagate offers its Exos drives with either SATA or SAS connectivity. Both companies are using traditional CMR platters that spin at 7,200 RPM.

WD didn't provide too many details when it comes to the performance of the Ultrastar DC HS760, as the company only claims it offers twice the sequential throughput and 1.7 times higher random performance compared with the Ultrastar DC HC560. WD appears to have a potential performance advantage over Seagate, as WD has integrated its OptiNAND technology based on WD's iNAND, which means that the Ultrastar DC HS760 should have at least twice as much cache as Seagates Exos X20 drives which top out at 256 MB. This is based on WD's DC HC560 drives which ship with 512 MB of cache. Just like Seagates Exos drives, the Ultrastar DC HS760 is a helium filled drive and WD claims 2.5 million MTBF time and offers a five year warranty. No pricing was revealed.

Toshiba may have spun off its flash memory business into Kioxia, but the company still makes mechanical hard-drives and derivative products such as portable HDDs. At the 2023 International CES, the company showed off its Canvio Gaming line of portable HDDs. These USB 3.1 portable hard drives come in capacities of up to 4 TB, and support both Xbox and PlayStation consoles, where they can be used to store entire libraries of games that can be made ready to play faster than fetching the game from the Internet.

The Canvio Advance series targets professionals on the move providing storage of up to 4 TB, with auto-backup both to itself and the cloud (though your PC), and data-encryption. The Canvio Ready and Canvio Flex target consumer use-cases. The latter in particular has a broad device compatibility spanning PCs, Macs, tablets, and handhelds, with USB-C and type-A interfaces. Lastly there's the N300 line of enterprise hard drives targeting NAS applications, which come in capacities of up to 18 TB, with up to 7,200 RPM spindle speed, and CMR recording (no SMR). These drives are designed for 24x7 operation, come with up to 1.2 million hours MTTF at 300 TB/year workload, and are backed by 5-year warranties.

When it comes to data, everything is growing - quantity, size, format, resolution, use cases, applications, value and more. As people and businesses look for solutions to effectively and efficiently store their data in the zettabyte era, Western Digital HDDs continue to play a critical role in delivering massive capacity, performance and reliability.

Extending its innovation and technology leadership across its portfolio, Western Digital today announced that it is now shipping new 22 TB HDDs targeting three key segments: WD Gold HDDs for IT/data center channel customers; WD Red Pro for network attached storage (NAS); and WD Purple Pro for smart video/surveillance. As highlighted in its What's Next Western Digital Event, these new drives are loaded with industry-firsts, including OptiNAND technology, energy-assisted PMR (ePMR), triple-stage actuator (TSA) and HelioSeal to deliver the industry's highest areal density at 2.2 TB per platter, delivering 22 TB CMR HDDs for its customers.

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.

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.

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.

Western Digital had already announced the Ultrastar DC HC550 drives back in late 2019, but only now have they actually been released for sale. The new drives make use of CMR (Conventional Magnetic Recording), where data is stored in parallel tracks that increase rewriting proficiency of the drives compared to SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording, in which data tracks are overlapped for higher data density). In addition to CMR, Western Digital is employing some form of energy assistance (the EA in EAMR), though the company hasn't slipped many technical details on what kind of energy assistance is actually employed.

The drives are available in either SATA or SAS connections, with a data density of up to 1,022 gigabits per square inch in these 18 TB drives. Nine platters are employed, with speeds rated at 270 MB/s at 7,200 RPM. A 512 MB cache helps increase overall data speeds, and WD is offering their usual 5-year warranty with continuous operation and 550 TBW per year ratings. Street pricing for these Ultrastar DC HC550 18 TB drives seems to over around €630.

Western Digital started selling an 18 TB variant of its WD Gold line of "enterprise class" SATA hard drives (model: WD181KRYZ). The WD Gold series tops the company's SATA HDD lineup and its in the gray area between client and scalar enterprise segments, where the company sells its HGST Ultrastar HDDs. WD Gold drives are still rated for 24x7 operation, and can be safely used in large RAID arrays. The drives are confirmed to lack SMR and DM-SMR; and are confirmed to use CMR (conventional magnetic recording), which ensures predictable write speeds and random-write performance. The WD Gold WD181KRYZ features 7,200 RPM spindle speed, HelioSeal technology (the main disk chamber is sealed and filled with inert helium gas), and 2.5 million-hour MTBF. Performance numbers and cache size for the 18 TB model are unknown, but the 14 TB variant in this series offers up to 267 MB/s sequential transfers, and features a 512 MB DRAM write cache. The WD181KRYZ is listed on UK store SCAN for £520.

Seagate announced its roadmap for the coming years, and the company is naturally fighting tooth and nail for the relevance of HDD technology in the market. While the benefits of SSDs are already well understood by the entire industry, in some scenarios, it makes more sense to make use of high-density HDDs - particularly where deployment space is at a premium, and in scenarios where seek times for information stored on the media aren't all that important. This is why the company is aggressively pushing its new HAMR technology as a way to increase areal density on traditional platter-based media.

Plans to achieve 18 TB and 20 TB density HDDs in the first semester of 2020 seem to be well within reason, considering the company has recently shipped 16 TB HDDs. These HDD solutions will still make use of older technologies such as CMR (Conventional Magnetic Recording), for the 18 TB drives) and SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording) for their 20 TB 2020 products. The company will later make use of their proprietary HAMR (Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording) technology in order to upgrade their 20 TB, and 20 TB+ HDDs with higher performance (and density) than can be achieved with the tried and true SMR. When it comes to performance improvements, a latent disadvantage in HDDs compared to solid state solutions, the company will eventually deploy HDDs which make use of two sets of read/write heads instead of a single one.

Toshiba Electronic Devices & Storage Corporation today announced the launch of the MG07ACA Series, the world's first enterprise 14TB Conventional Magnetic Recording (CMR) HDD. Using a 9-disk, helium-sealed design, the new MG07ACA Series provides the power-efficient capacity and storage density needed by cloud-scale and enterprise storage solution providers to achieve their TCO objectives.

"We have raised the bar with the new MG07ACA Series 9-disk helium-sealed design," said Akitoshi Iwata, Vice President of Storage Products Division, Toshiba Electronic Devices and Storage Corporation. "By utilizing an innovative design, we continue to improve the benefits that high-capacity disk storage can deliver to our broad global customer base."