Solid-state storage vendors face capacity expansion issues

2017-05-04

Soon the workstation storage vendor plans to use the number of disks to increase the capacity of the hard disk, the technology transfer cost is high and the technology is too difficult

Soon the workstation storage vendor plans to use the number of disks to increase the capacity of the hard disk, the technology transfer cost is high and the technology is too difficult.Solid-state storage vendors want to solve the hard disk capacity only two methods at present, one is to increase the areal density of each disk, and the other is to increase the number of disks. We cannot increase the size of the disk, as this will increase the vibration amplitude at the edge of the disk, making it more difficult to correct the height of the read / write head. Increasing the disk size is not in line with the development direction of the hard disk, because the current hard disk is developing in the direction of 2.5 inches. Glass disks used in 2.5-inch hard disks are harder than aluminum disks used in 3.5-inch hard disks.

微信图片_20210323145019.pngTechnology migration cost

How will solid-state storage vendors handle this problem, the amount of data for end users is growing at a mixed annual growth rate of 50%, and the world needs larger hard disks to store the growing data. Solid-state storage vendors will install more read-write heads and disks on hard drives, or sell more hard drives.

However, data centers have limited floor space and power. The number of storage arrays cannot be increased indefinitely. Therefore, we estimate that solid-state storage vendors will install more read-write heads and disks in hard drives. There may be three to four or even five disks in a 2.5-inch hard drive. We might see a 3.5-inch hard drive with 1 to 3 disks.

This means that the hard drive slots of the storage array will become larger than before. It is conceivable that you can add a disk while reducing the thickness of the disk to keep the thickness of the entire hard disk box unchanged, but if you add 2 or 3 disks, the thickness of the hard disk box will definitely increase. In addition, increasing the number of disks also increases power consumption.


Overwrite

Overwrite technology can temporarily increase capacity, that is, write data when the tiles on the roof of a tile house overlap each other, so that more data can be written on the disk. In this case, the disk sector will increase to 4kb, but the disk performance will decrease because copying the data means copying the entire track instead of copying a disk sector. Overwrite technology has been used on external hard drives. It is suitable for writing large amounts of data, not for transaction environments where small amounts of data are frequently written. Due to performance issues, this technology is also not suitable for enterprise hard drives.


This technique can increase the areal density. However, you need to migrate to a new generation of technology. We believe that BPM technology will be completely phased out in 4 to 5 years. ASML, which supplied the device to solid-state storage vendors, was unable to provide it this year. Barber also mentioned: "Samsung has basically booked all the equipment they can produce this year."


The production equipment still has a long way to go before mass production. He refers to molecular imprinting and targeted education, which can last 4 to 5 years, and they need to invest heavily in research and development. Customers will not buy in bulk for at least 5 years.


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