A computer components & hardware forum. HardwareBanter

If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Go Back   Home » HardwareBanter forum » General Hardware & Peripherals » Storage (alternative)
Site Map Home Register Authors List Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read Web Partners

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



 
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #11  
Old August 4th 20, 03:21 PM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
Percival P. Cassidy
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 227
Default "Western Digital releases new 18TB, 20TB EAMR drives"

On 7/19/20 9:05 PM, 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.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.


Not that many years ago a family member who works for a *large*
data-storage company was telling me about their *huge* robotic tape systems.

I have had so many tapes fail over the years.Â* 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.Â* I could go on and on and on.


Doesn't anybody do compare-after-write checks?

Perce

  #12  
Old August 4th 20, 04:21 PM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
Mark Perkins
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 110
Default "Western Digital releases new 18TB, 20TB EAMR drives"

On Tue, 4 Aug 2020 03:25:25 -0400, Yousuf Khan
wrote:

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.


That's crazy. Why would you say that?

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.


That's some crazy sh*t there. ;-)

  #13  
Old August 4th 20, 04:27 PM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
Mark Perkins
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 110
Default "Western Digital releases new 18TB, 20TB EAMR drives"

On Tue, 4 Aug 2020 03:28:02 -0400, Yousuf Khan
wrote:

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?


No, and I'm not likely to at this point. Those systems were obsolete at
least 20 years ago, although I'm sure there are a few holdouts here and
there. The few that might still be in operation are just waiting to be
replaced with modern technology.

  #14  
Old August 5th 20, 11:49 PM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
Yousuf Khan[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,296
Default "Western Digital releases new 18TB, 20TB EAMR drives"

On 8/4/2020 11:21 AM, Mark Perkins wrote:
On Tue, 4 Aug 2020 03:25:25 -0400, Yousuf Khan
wrote:
That's exactly the point! Modern HDD designs are taking away their
random access features and replacing them with serial-access features.


That's crazy. Why would you say that?


What do you think SMR is? SMR requires a serial write pattern to
optimize its writing performance. If you try to write to an SMR drive in
a completely random way then performance drops 10x. HDD's are thus
becoming more serialized devices.

Yousuf Khan
  #15  
Old August 5th 20, 11:52 PM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
Yousuf Khan[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,296
Default "Western Digital releases new 18TB, 20TB EAMR drives"

On 8/4/2020 11:27 AM, Mark Perkins wrote:
On Tue, 4 Aug 2020 03:28:02 -0400, Yousuf Khan
wrote:

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?


No, and I'm not likely to at this point. Those systems were obsolete at
least 20 years ago, although I'm sure there are a few holdouts here and
there. The few that might still be in operation are just waiting to be
replaced with modern technology.


Since when? I don't think you know how important these are to enterprise
backup solutions. Millions of dollars are spent every year on installing
new arrays, and hundreds of thousands are spent on tape media. They're
read and write performance is much higher than HDD's when talking about
serial access. This is not something that is legacy, and going down, the
expenditures are going up, because it's the best way to backup data.

Yousuf Khan
  #16  
Old August 6th 20, 01:28 AM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
Mark Perkins
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 110
Default "Western Digital releases new 18TB, 20TB EAMR drives"

On Wed, 5 Aug 2020 18:49:03 -0400, Yousuf Khan
wrote:

On 8/4/2020 11:21 AM, Mark Perkins wrote:
On Tue, 4 Aug 2020 03:25:25 -0400, Yousuf Khan
wrote:
That's exactly the point! Modern HDD designs are taking away their
random access features and replacing them with serial-access features.


That's crazy. Why would you say that?


What do you think SMR is? SMR requires a serial write pattern to
optimize its writing performance. If you try to write to an SMR drive in
a completely random way then performance drops 10x. HDD's are thus
becoming more serialized devices.


Wow, you're seriously confused. SMR is *NOT* a serial write pattern.
Whoever told you that is wrong. It doesn't even make sense.

Hard drives can reliably read data in much narrower tracks than they can
write it, so disk capacity has traditionally been limited by how tightly
the tracks can be packed together without losing the capability to write a
single track. SMR simply groups the tracks into sets of 'zones'. When a
track needs to be written, the entire zone that the track belongs to is
written. During reads, individual tracks can be read exactly the same as
with non-SMR drives.

So, no serial writing or reading. The downside of SMR, and the reason why
the technology has a bad name, is that once data has been written to the
drive and now it's time to update a track, the zone (group of tracks) will
have to be read first, before the zone can be (re)written. That slows down
the writes compared to non-SMR, but reads are unaffected since individual
tracks can be read without any issues or special tricks.

  #17  
Old August 6th 20, 01:40 AM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
Mark Perkins
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 110
Default "Western Digital releases new 18TB, 20TB EAMR drives"

On Wed, 5 Aug 2020 18:52:47 -0400, Yousuf Khan
wrote:

On 8/4/2020 11:27 AM, Mark Perkins wrote:
On Tue, 4 Aug 2020 03:28:02 -0400, Yousuf Khan
wrote:

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?


No, and I'm not likely to at this point. Those systems were obsolete at
least 20 years ago, although I'm sure there are a few holdouts here and
there. The few that might still be in operation are just waiting to be
replaced with modern technology.


Since when? I don't think you know how important these are to enterprise
backup solutions.


Correct. I've been in several hundred different data centers over the past
7 years, and a lesser number of data centers over the 20 years before that.
I've seen a lot of drive arrays but I haven't seen a single tape array
since about the late 1990s. I'm primarily describing my own experience when
I say that tape is virtually obsolete. When you say there are still tape
backup systems out there in production somewhere, I don't doubt what you're
saying. I'm just saying they're rare, while drive backup arrays are beyond
common.

Millions of dollars are spent every year on installing
new arrays, and hundreds of thousands are spent on tape media. They're
read and write performance is much higher than HDD's when talking about
serial access.


Sorry, I'm not buying that. Even with the silly qualifier, "when talking
about serial access."

This is not something that is legacy, and going down, the
expenditures are going up, because it's the best way to backup data.


Well don't keep it a secret. Let the good folks over at Backblaze know.
While you're at it, cc the good folks at Amazon's AWS and Microsoft's Azure
organizations. They're all wasting their money on hard drives.

  #18  
Old August 6th 20, 06:13 AM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
Ant[_3_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 756
Default "Western Digital releases new 18TB, 20TB EAMR drives"

For how much? :P


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




--
Life's so loco! ..!.. *isms, sins, hates, (d)evil, illnesses (e.g., COVID-19/2019-nCoV/SARS-CoV-2), deaths (RIP), interruptions, stresses, heat waves, fires, out(r)ages, dramas, unlucky #4, 2020, greeds, bugs (e.g., crashes & female mosquitoes), etc.
Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly.
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://aqfl.net & http://antfarm.home.dhs.org /
/ /\ /\ \ http://antfarm.ma.cx. Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail.
| |o o| |
\ _ /
( )
  #19  
Old August 7th 20, 12:38 AM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
Lynn McGuire[_3_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 198
Default "Western Digital releases new 18TB, 20TB EAMR drives"

On 8/6/2020 12:13 AM, Ant wrote:
For how much? :P


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


If you have to ask then you cannot afford it. The WD 18 TB Gold is $637
at Big River.

https://www.amazon.com/Gold-Enterpri...dp/B089S3CZ41/

Lynn



 




Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
"desktop quality" (or better) drives in 2.5" laptop form factor? phreak Storage (alternative) 0 December 26th 06 10:07 PM
Western Digital "My Book" - Questions [email protected] Storage (alternative) 16 October 22nd 06 04:47 PM
Western Digital "My Book" - Replacing the hard drive [email protected] Storage (alternative) 0 July 8th 06 06:31 PM
Western Digital "Recertified" Drives - How Reliable.? ? ? ? Starz_Kid General 11 June 26th 06 06:01 PM


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 09:26 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©2004-2024 HardwareBanter.
The comments are property of their posters.