cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/24650125
Because nothing says “fun” quite like having to restore a RAID that just saw 140TB fail.
Western Digital this week outlined its near-term and mid-term plans to increase hard drive capacities to around 60TB and beyond with optimizations that significantly increase HDD performance for the AI and cloud era. In addition, the company outlined its longer-term vision for hard disk drives’ evolution that includes a new laser technology for heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR), new platters with higher areal density, and HDD assemblies with up to 14 platters. As a result, WD will be able to offer drives beyond 140 TB in the 2030s.
Western Digital plans to volume produce its inaugural commercial hard drives featuring HAMR technology next year, with capacities rising from 40TB (CMR) or 44TB (SMR) in late 2026, with production ramping in 2027. These drives will use the company’s proven 11-platter platform with high-density media as well as HAMR heads with edge-emitting lasers that heat iron-platinum alloy (FePt) on top of platters to its Curie temperature — the point at which its magnetic properties change — and reducing its magnetic coercivity before writing data.
I just hope smaller sized drives become cheaper. The word “hope” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.
Ten years from now…
Amazon search: “hard drive”
Result: 4TB $198
I think ten years from now you’ll be hard pressed to find anyone even wasting their time on something so small.
Kind of the point of my comment was that drive size/cost is stagnating despite the massive technical progress in the space. I bought my first 4TB drive in 2020 ($89). Going back to 2015, I was buying 2TB at the same price ($86). Here in 2026, what’s the ~same price? 4TB ($99). 8TB is $180.
so you say, but people still collect “antique” hardware.
Well, retro etc. but I wouldn’t consider this to be that. There’s no inherent value of a run-of-the-mill drive with merely lower storage capacity. And certainly not worth a premium.
it’s not antique yet. i still have my 5.25" diskettes with quest for glory 2 on them and they’re almost antique. i think the usb drive that reads them still works. give them another couple years.
do HDDs work better than SSDs in space? because of the cosmic rays and shit? or something about intermittent power? no, really, this is a real problem that they could be already solving, one i know jack shit about.
It depends. For anything going into space, especially microsats, the biggest concerns are space, weight, and power. SSDs are better at all of those, plus they don’t have any gyroscopic effects, and they’re much less susceptible to vibrations (e.g. the absolute earthquake at liftoff and the sudden jolts during each rocket stage). They are more susceptible to high-energy particles, but they can be hardened through shielding and parity/redundancy.
For a datacenter on Mars, you’re less concerned with SWaP, only as much as you need to be to get it there as cargo. Obviously that means space and weight are still concerns, but not power.
The other factor with using fewer larger drives is that when you have a failure, you lose a lot more data, and any recovery takes longer.
So you want to be a hero!!! I only ever played the first one but fell in love with it.
Erana’s Peace. hidengoseke. Meep’s Peep, my friend.
the second was the best in the series, but they all have their charm. i really need to buy the new game the coles made
BARGAIN!