HDDs
Dropbox was among the first large cloud service providers (CSPs) providers to deploy hard drives that use shingled magnetic recording (SMR) to increase storage density of its datacenters. As the company is looking forward to future technology and plans to be one of the first adopters of HDDs featuring heat assisted magnetic recording (HAMR), it is already planning for how HAMR drives will affect its datacenters and how it should prepare for their deployment. In a surprising candid blog post, Dropbox shared some thoughts and experiences ahead of the deployment of HDDs of based on HAMR technology, which will offer capacities starting from 30TB and spanning all the way to 100TB and higher in the future. In a bid to ensure predictable performance of these...
The WD Black2 Review: World's First 2.5" Dual-Drive
If you had asked me a few years ago, I would've said that hybrid drives will be the next big thing in the storage industry. A hybrid drive made...
100 by Kristian Vättö on 1/30/2014
Western Digital Releases Black^2: 120GB SSD + 1TB HD Dual-Drive in 2.5" Form Factor
To date all the hybrid storage solutions we have seen have been rather limited. Seagate got the idea right with the Momentus XT but having only 8GB of NAND...
66 by Kristian Vättö on 11/25/2013_carousel.jpg){kind=spacer}
Hardware Tricks: How to Not Fix a Crashed Hard Drive
Earlier this year, I posted a short story and video of my attempt at – and success – repairing a Gateway notebook that was suffering a Code 43 GPU...
66 by Jarred Walton on 9/13/2013
Seagate to Ship 5TB HDD in 2014 using Shingled Magnetic Recording
It's not just planar NAND that's running into physical limits lately. According to Seagate, its latest 1TB platter 3.5" drives have shrunk read/write heads as small as they can...
27 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 9/9/2013
Seagate's Ultra Mobile HDD: Putting HDDs in Android Tablets
In a move I honestly never thought would happen, Seagate is announcing today plans to brings its 5mm 2.5" Laptop Ultrathin HDD to Android tablets. The drive will come...
42 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 9/9/2013
Battle of the 4 TB NAS Drives: WD Red and Seagate NAS HDD Face-Off
The SMB / SOHO / consumer NAS market is expected to experience good growth over the next few years. With declining PC sales and increase in affordability of SSDs...
54 by Ganesh T S on 9/4/2013
Western Digital Updates Red NAS Drive Lineup with 4 TB and 2.5" Versions
In July 2012, we saw Western Digital tackle the burgeoning NAS market with the 3.5" Red hard drive lineup. They specifically catered to units having 1-5 bays. The firmware...
29 by Ganesh T S on 9/3/2013
Computex 2013: Silicon Power and Rugged Portable Storage
Silicon Power are currently a brand dealing with memory and flash storage, but on visiting their offices as part of our Computex 2013 activities they had a couple of...
5 by Ian Cutress on 6/8/2013
Western Digital Launches WD Se Hard Drive Lineup for Datacenters and High-end NAS Units
One of the most interesting launches from Western Digital last year was the WD Red line of hard drives from the client storage division. It was intended for low...
23 by Ganesh T S on 5/28/2013
Seagate to Discontinue 7200rpm 2.5" Drives Later This Year
Earlier today X-bit Labs reported that Seagate will stop the production of their 7200RPM 2.5" drives by the end of this year and I just got a confirmation from...
57 by Kristian Vättö on 3/1/2013
Hands On With Western Digital's New 5mm Hybrid Hard Drive
Remember the 5mm hybrid HDD announcement from yesterday? I just spent some time with the drive itself at the IDF Tech Showcase. The 5mm drive will be OEM-only at...
17 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 9/11/2012
Western Digital Teases 5mm Hybrid Hard Drive
Intel's Ultrabook push has forced hard drive makers to do two things: take hybrid drives more seriously (because of the Ultrabook performance requirements) as well as focus on thinner...
13 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 9/10/2012
WD Introduces Red: NAS Optimized HDD Line
WD did everyone a favor when they reorganized their products under color-coded branding a few years ago. With the Blue (mainstream), Green (quiet and cool) and Black (performance) lines...
39 by Jason Inofuentes on 7/10/2012
Western Digital VelociRaptor 1TB (WD1000DHTZ) Review
There was a time when Western Digital's Raptor (and later, the VelociRaptor) was a staple of any high-end desktop build. Rotational media could only deliver better performance by increasing...
92 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 4/16/2012
Western Digital To Sell Hitachi's 3.5” Hard Drive Business To Toshiba, Complete Hitachi Buyout
Almost exactly a year ago, Western Digital announced that they would be buying Hitachi’s hard drive division from Hitachi for $4.3 billion. Since then, the two companies have been...
9 by Ryan Smith on 3/6/2012
Seagate 2nd Generation Momentus XT (750GB) Hybrid HDD Review
To say I liked the original Momentus XT would be an understatement. While Seagate had the lofty goal of negating the need for an SSD with its first mass-market...
98 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 12/13/2011
Hard Drive Shortage Hits Intel: Q4'11 Earning Estimates Revised Down By $1B
It has been expected for some time now that the fallout from Thailand’s well publicized flooding and resulting hard drive shortage would have wider ramifications than just impacting the...
26 by Ryan Smith on 12/12/2011
Seagate's 2nd Gen Momentus XT: More NAND, Larger Capacity
It's been over a year since I reviewed Seagate's first hybrid hard drive: the 500GB Momentus XT. At the time I felt that it wasn't nearly as good as...
39 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 11/28/2011
Seagate Awarded $525 million in Arbitration with Western Digital
Western Digital announced today in a press release that the arbitrator for a Seagate vs. Western Digital complaint sided with Seagate and ordered an award of $525 million paid...
19 by Amman Sood on 11/21/2011
Thailand's flooding and our HDD needs
This holiday season might be a big one for SSD manufacturers. Like most tropical regions, Thailand experiences dry and rainy seasons, which are somewhat predicable, with the rainy season...
10 by Jason Inofuentes on 11/18/2011
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