Known for enabling new levels of enterprise total cost of ownership (TCO) with HelioSeal helium hard drive technology and industry leading capacity drives, Western Digital Corporation is expanding its portfolio for enterprise customers with a new, mid-range series of 4 terabyte (TB), 6TB and 8TB air-based hard drives. The new products enable corporate data centers having data set sizes smaller than found in hyperscale environments to harness the power of data across a broad spectrum of Big Data applications such as analytics and distributed file systems.

Western Digital leads the high-capacity enterprise hard drive market for hyperscale and cloud environments with its 10TB, 12TB and 14TB drives, where the company's HelioSeal helium-sealing technology is required for the highest capacities and densities to deliver the lowest (or best) TCO. However, many applications have small data sets or benefit from optimal performance from implementation of a cluster of lower capacity, air-based hard drives. Many traditional data center systems still rely on moderate capacity points for RAID-based block-and-file systems.

Seagate may currently be one of the first tech companies in storage conversations due to their upcoming HAMR (Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording) technology, which should enable 20 TB HDDs by 2020. And even though HDDs are better known for their high areal density and price/storage ratio, which is only bound to increase through the usage of HAMR, Seagate knows that areal density is hardly one of the principal bottlenecks in HDD technology. The bottleneck, as it usually is, is speed.

HDDs have an old design philosophy by now, where an actuator arm moves read/writing heads in parallel across the surface of the disk - nowadays, there are usually two heads per platter (one on the upper side, and one on the underside of it). As you might image, a given head can either read or write at one point in time - and all heads move in tandem, with different heads reading or writing across the multiple spinning discs that constitute the hard drive. This, however, means that HDD reading efficiency is lost - due to how small the 1s and 0s are on HDDs, only one head can be moved to an exact data path, with all the others moving with it, spending power and increasing the load on the actuator for nary a speed gain or minimal workload.

Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. (TAEC), a committed technology leader, announces the AL15SE Series HDD, its next generation of 10,500 rpm enterprise performance hard disk drives for mission critical servers and storage. The new drive series boasts a 2,400 GB capacity model - a 33 percent capacity increase over Toshiba's AL14SE generation and Toshiba's largest capacity ever for a 10,500 rpm HDD.

Built to deliver superior low-latency performance, the AL15SE Series supports 12 Gbit/s SAS dual-port interface to optimize the host transfer rate. All models utilize a space-efficient, power-saving 2.5 inch , 15 mm form-factor. Advanced Format models support 4K native and 512e emulated sector technologies and increase areal density in capacities ranging from 600 GB to 2,400 GB and feature a 15 percent increase in sustained transfer rate over the prior AL14SE generation. New 512n sector technology models increase areal density in capacities ranging from 300 GB to 1,200 GB.

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."

Toshiba Electronic Devices & Storage Corporation today announced the addition of "MN06ACA10T," a 10-terabyte (TB) hard disk drive (HDD) in a 3.5-inch form factor with a SATA interface. The new drive is designed for home NAS and small office/home office (SOHO) NAS applications. Sample shipments start today.

"MN06ACA10T" air-based HDD delivers 10 TB capacity by deploying an improved magnetic recording head and disk magnetic layer. The 10 TB capacity is 25% higher than that of the previous model in the series, the 8 TB MN05ACA800, and buffer size is doubled to 256 MiB.

Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc., a committed technology leader, announces the MD06ACA-V, the latest addition to its SV Series line-up of 3.5-inch hard drives for surveillance applications. The new models are available in capacities up to 10 TB with a higher transfer rate compared to previous MD04ABA-V models, helping to enable support for up to 64 camera streams. Higher capacity and transfer rates enable support for higher resolution camera streams to meet changing compliance mandates for surveillance data.

The MD06ACA-V Series is designed for 24/7 streaming operation scenarios, and is typically used for surveillance digital video recorders (SDVR), surveillance network video recorders (SNVR) and Hybrid SDVR. The MD06ACA-V Series features 7,200 rpm access performance, and the new 10 TB model delivers a 58 percent increase in maximum sustained transfer rate when compared to Toshiba's prior MD04ABA-V series, pushing it to 237 MiB/s. Available in 6 TB, 8 TB and 10 TB capacities, the new models provide a SATA 6 Gbit/s interface, with a 256 MiB dynamic buffer. Additionally, the MD06ACA-V models support Advanced Format (512e) technology for compatibility with legacy applications and operating environments.

Halos AI Inc. unveiled its flagship product "CatDrive" which will be crowdfunding on Indiegogo on 21st Nov. As the most secure wireless external hard drive, CatDrive is safer than the cloud and even smarter than mobile hard drives. It astonishingly allows users to be masters of their own data and to store and share digital content safely and freely.

In addition to functions such as centralized storage and on-the-go access, CatDrive also lets provides you with safe and easy storage.

• 5 advanced technologies: Local-storage, shockproof HDD, independent accounts with private spaces and auto backup.
• Multiple users: Each user has their own account and space which is invisible to others.
• Private share circle: Members of CatDrive can share files without limits, receive real-time notifications, and the shared content will never expire.
• Photo Roll: Organize and display photos in a stunning way.

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.