"Western Digital releases new 18TB, 20TB EAMR drives"

"Western Digital releases new 18TB, 20TB EAMR drives"

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020...b-eamr-drives/

"EAMR offers similar density gains to HAMR and MAMR, with less exotic tech."

Wow, that reminds of the good old Prime mini days with the $250,000
twelve platter twelve inch hard drives.

SSD is definitely coming on strong. I keep on wondering if the
holographic media is ever going to be useful.

Lynn

On Thu, 16 Jul 2020 16:39:16 -0500, Lynn McGuire
wrote:

"Western Digital releases new 18TB, 20TB EAMR drives"

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020...b-eamr-drives/

"EAMR offers similar density gains to HAMR and MAMR, with less exotic tech."

Wow, that reminds of the good old Prime mini days with the $250,000
twelve platter twelve inch hard drives.

SSD is definitely coming on strong. I keep on wondering if the
holographic media is ever going to be useful.

I've been shopping for a pair of 16's lately, so I like the announcement
because it might tend to push prices down even further.

On 7/16/2020 5:39 PM, Lynn McGuire wrote:
"Western Digital releases new 18TB, 20TB EAMR drives"

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020...b-eamr-drives/


"EAMR offers similar density gains to HAMR and MAMR, with less exotic
tech."

Wow, that reminds of the good old Prime mini days with the $250,000
twelve platter twelve inch hard drives.

SSD is definitely coming on strong.Â* I keep on wondering if the
holographic media is ever going to be useful.

Lynn

The amount of trickery needed to keep increasing the HDD's capacity is
starting to become unsustainable: SMR, HAMR, MAMR, EAMR, etc. It's
starting to look like, that among magnetic recording technologies, tape
is going to end up outliving HDD's, even though HDD's were originally
intended to replace earlier versions of tape. Even the main advantage of
HDD over tape, random access read or write performance, is no longer
that much of an advantage, as HDD's are starting employ technologies
that make them horrible random access writers, negating their advantage
over tape. It's going to be SSD's and tape only from now on.

Yousuf Khan

On Sat, 18 Jul 2020 11:42:06 -0400, Yousuf Khan
wrote:

On 7/16/2020 5:39 PM, Lynn McGuire wrote:
"Western Digital releases new 18TB, 20TB EAMR drives"

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020...b-eamr-drives/


"EAMR offers similar density gains to HAMR and MAMR, with less exotic
tech."

Wow, that reminds of the good old Prime mini days with the $250,000
twelve platter twelve inch hard drives.

SSD is definitely coming on strong.* I keep on wondering if the
holographic media is ever going to be useful.

Lynn

The amount of trickery needed to keep increasing the HDD's capacity is
starting to become unsustainable: SMR, HAMR, MAMR, EAMR, etc. It's
starting to look like, that among magnetic recording technologies, tape
is going to end up outliving HDD's, even though HDD's were originally
intended to replace earlier versions of tape. Even the main advantage of
HDD over tape, random access read or write performance, is no longer
that much of an advantage, as HDD's are starting employ technologies
that make them horrible random access writers, negating their advantage
over tape. It's going to be SSD's and tape only from now on.

I can't tell if you're serious. I mean, obviously not, but no smiley
anywhere, so I'm not sure.

Tape has never been a viable random access medium and never will be.
If you're a glutton for punishment, I suppose you could use it for archival
purposes, but even that's a stretch these days. Check with your local
museum to see if they have a tape system they're willing to part with.
There's a reason why all of the big data storage organizations use hard
drives exclusively.

On Friday, July 17, 2020 at 5:39:21 AM UTC+8, Lynn McGuire wrote:
"Western Digital releases new 18TB, 20TB EAMR drives"

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020...b-eamr-drives/

"EAMR offers similar density gains to HAMR and MAMR, with less exotic tech."


nice getting lots of TB without shingles, but on WD website, Gold drive
"Full specifications"
is a joke. Doesn't show read and write MB/s
Even the Ultrastar 18 TB data sheet doesn't list write speed. I am curious
if the new kludges affect this.

On 7/18/2020 1:41 PM, Mark Perkins wrote:
On Sat, 18 Jul 2020 11:42:06 -0400, Yousuf Khan
wrote:

On 7/16/2020 5:39 PM, Lynn McGuire wrote:
"Western Digital releases new 18TB, 20TB EAMR drives"

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020...b-eamr-drives/


"EAMR offers similar density gains to HAMR and MAMR, with less exotic
tech."

Wow, that reminds of the good old Prime mini days with the $250,000
twelve platter twelve inch hard drives.

SSD is definitely coming on strong.Â* I keep on wondering if the
holographic media is ever going to be useful.

Lynn

The amount of trickery needed to keep increasing the HDD's capacity is
starting to become unsustainable: SMR, HAMR, MAMR, EAMR, etc. It's
starting to look like, that among magnetic recording technologies, tape
is going to end up outliving HDD's, even though HDD's were originally
intended to replace earlier versions of tape. Even the main advantage of
HDD over tape, random access read or write performance, is no longer
that much of an advantage, as HDD's are starting employ technologies
that make them horrible random access writers, negating their advantage
over tape. It's going to be SSD's and tape only from now on.

I can't tell if you're serious. I mean, obviously not, but no smiley
anywhere, so I'm not sure.

Tape has never been a viable random access medium and never will be.
If you're a glutton for punishment, I suppose you could use it for archival
purposes, but even that's a stretch these days. Check with your local
museum to see if they have a tape system they're willing to part with.
There's a reason why all of the big data storage organizations use hard
drives exclusively.

I have had so many tapes fail over the years. There is nothing like the
experience of flying Houston to Dallas, cabbing over to the mainframe
building, grabbing a nine track tape, flying back to Houston, delivering
the tape to the customer, then finding out that the freaking tape was
empty. I could go on and on and on.

Lynn

On Sun, 19 Jul 2020 20:05:23 -0500, Lynn McGuire
wrote:

On 7/18/2020 1:41 PM, Mark Perkins wrote:
On Sat, 18 Jul 2020 11:42:06 -0400, Yousuf Khan
wrote:

On 7/16/2020 5:39 PM, Lynn McGuire wrote:
"Western Digital releases new 18TB, 20TB EAMR drives"

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020...b-eamr-drives/


"EAMR offers similar density gains to HAMR and MAMR, with less exotic
tech."

Wow, that reminds of the good old Prime mini days with the $250,000
twelve platter twelve inch hard drives.

SSD is definitely coming on strong.* I keep on wondering if the
holographic media is ever going to be useful.

Lynn

The amount of trickery needed to keep increasing the HDD's capacity is
starting to become unsustainable: SMR, HAMR, MAMR, EAMR, etc. It's
starting to look like, that among magnetic recording technologies, tape
is going to end up outliving HDD's, even though HDD's were originally
intended to replace earlier versions of tape. Even the main advantage of
HDD over tape, random access read or write performance, is no longer
that much of an advantage, as HDD's are starting employ technologies
that make them horrible random access writers, negating their advantage
over tape. It's going to be SSD's and tape only from now on.

I can't tell if you're serious. I mean, obviously not, but no smiley
anywhere, so I'm not sure.

Tape has never been a viable random access medium and never will be.
If you're a glutton for punishment, I suppose you could use it for archival
purposes, but even that's a stretch these days. Check with your local
museum to see if they have a tape system they're willing to part with.
There's a reason why all of the big data storage organizations use hard
drives exclusively.

I have had so many tapes fail over the years. There is nothing like the
experience of flying Houston to Dallas, cabbing over to the mainframe
building, grabbing a nine track tape, flying back to Houston, delivering
the tape to the customer, then finding out that the freaking tape was
empty. I could go on and on and on.

I've had a very similar experience, on more than one occasion. The tape
recorder looks like it's doing its thing and the folks say they're doing
what they're supposed to do, like putting on a fresh tape each night at
midnight and doing the periodic routine maintenance, but when you get a
call asking you to load yesterday's tape and it's empty, your heart sinks.

On Sunday, July 19, 2020 at 2:41:36 AM UTC+8, Mark Perkins wrote:

Tape has never been a viable random access medium and never will be.
If you're a glutton for punishment, I suppose you could use it for archival
purposes, but even that's a stretch these days. Check with your local
museum to see if they have a tape system they're willing to part with.
There's a reason why all of the big data storage organizations use hard
drives exclusively.

My last workplace used LTO-8 for offsite backups. I imagine quite a few do.
It would have take 10 times as long using cloud backup.

On 7/18/2020 2:41 PM, Mark Perkins wrote:
I can't tell if you're serious. I mean, obviously not, but no smiley
anywhere, so I'm not sure.

Tape has never been a viable random access medium and never will be.
If you're a glutton for punishment, I suppose you could use it for archival
purposes, but even that's a stretch these days. Check with your local
museum to see if they have a tape system they're willing to part with.
There's a reason why all of the big data storage organizations use hard
drives exclusively.

That's exactly the point! Modern HDD designs are taking away their
random access features and replacing them with serial-access features.
If you're going to be using serial-access devices, then it might as well
be tapes. All of the random access is beginning to be done (and done
better) through SSD's, so with tape capacity being higher than HDD's,
and random-access features being better on SSD's, HDD's are going to be
squeezed out.

Yousuf Khan

On 7/19/2020 11:04 PM, Mark Perkins wrote:
I've had a very similar experience, on more than one occasion. The tape
recorder looks like it's doing its thing and the folks say they're doing
what they're supposed to do, like putting on a fresh tape each night at
midnight and doing the periodic routine maintenance, but when you get a
call asking you to load yesterday's tape and it's empty, your heart sinks.

Have you never used an enterprise-class tape carousels or robotic tape
arrays?

Yousuf Khan