Hacker News Reader

Comment by aw3c2 | Hacker News Reader

Alternatively pass on that hysterical title and go directly to the press release http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?locale=en-US&name=...

Main content is: The maximum capacity of today’s 3.5-inch hard drives is 3 terabytes (TB), at about 620 gigabits per square inch, while 2.5-inch drives top out at 750 gigabytes (GB), or roughly 500 gigabits per square inch. The first generation of HAMR drives, at just over 1 terabit per square inch, will likely more than double these capacities – to 6TB for 3.5-inch drives and 2TB for 2.5-inch models. The technology offers a scale of capacity growth never before possible, with a theoretical areal density limit ranging from 5 to 10 terabits per square inch – 30TB to 60TB for 3.5-inch drives and 10TB to 20TB for 2.5-inch drives.

View on HN

That's quite a mouthful for a title. I see 60TB is the upper bound for 3.5 inch, so not much wrong with the title, is it?

>I see 60TB is the upper bound for 3.5 inch, so not much wrong with the title, is it?

Well the problem there is that it's a theoretical upper bound, which is another way of saying "we have not yet found a specific reason that 3.5 inch 60TB drives should be impossible with this technology". That is a far cry from "on their way".

This is similar to the announcements from Intel about advances in lithography. Intel announced the 32nm process technology in 2009 -- that process gives them a platform to refine and improve their technology.

So now, a top of the line Xeon is faster, has 10 multi-threaded cores, includes AES acceleration, and uses 20% less power than it's predecessor 3 years ago... thanks to that base technology.

If you're running a business that generates/consumes alot of storage, this announcement means that you need to start thinking about how to deal with a petabyte of storage capacity with performance characteristics similar to what you have today. (for 1/30th capacity)

HDD transfer speeds do increase as storage density's increase. It might be more accurate to say 30x the space but only square root (30) times the transfer speed.

Random access performance will be an issue, unless they work some magic on that, too. Same for bus-speeds.

Today you can fit about 96T into 4U if you squeeze a little. That's 48 spindles then, sharing the load.

With 60T drives that turns into 2.8P on the same 48 spindles.

At today's maximum SAS bus-speeds (roughly 10 GBit/s) it would take 33 days just to write such an array full (assuming all components can sustain that throughput).

And let's not get started on IOPS...

Anyway, it will be a while before 60T drives hit the shelves. Until then at least the bus-speed issues will probably be sorted out.

The maximum capacity of today's 3.5 inch hard drives is 4tb, and has been since last year. I know it's a press release, but that's bending the truth a little too far for my taste.

The meaning of the title is that Seagate is claiming that after a few years of stuttering they've jump-started exponential growth for the HD once again.

I'd say it's a big deal that Seagate claims they will develop 60TB HDs with your usual exponential growth curve (bearing in mind we're starting at 2-6TB.) "On the way" doesn't mean tomorrow.

And I own a 1TB 2.5" external drive.

And I've got a 2.5" 9mm internal one, but I'm fairly sure that they're talking about density per platter and all 2.5" HDDs larger than 750 GB seem to use two platters.

actually there are 1TB 2.5" drives already, and WD just released 2TB 2.5" USB drive (by looking at it's pictures I assume it is standart height) http://www.reghardware.com/2012/03/20/wd_intros_worlds_first...

Seagate's press release makes it sound like there're no other HDD manufacturers in the world besides them.

I don't know about right now, but last I looked (~1 year ago) the 1TB 2.5" drives were not standard height. Some people were able to jam them into specific laptop models that had enough room (or flex), but that was it.

Another way to look at it is to see how many bare drives are being sold at those specs (1TB 2.5") vs. external drives. The bare drives won't sell as well if they are a non-standard height (at least I assume they wouldn't).

Well, they are standard enough to fit into a MacBook Pro (even the 13") so I think they were quite popular, I have one, and know quite a few other people that do.

Samsung and WD are selling 9mm (standard height) 1TB drives, and have done so for almost a year. I think Toshiba or Hitachi recently released a 7mm (extra slim) 750GB drive. Seagate has been selling extra thick (15mm) 1.5TB drives, but only inside external enclosures, for some time now.

Many laptops will also accept the thick 12mm drives you're referring to.

The 2 TB drive is not standard height, it is 21 mm (with four plates). Standard that fits into laptop is 9 mm.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com