Seagate Multi-actuator hard drive breaks throughput record with Sequential performance of 480 MB/s

[cbn]

https://blog.seagate.com/enterprises/mach2-and-hamr-breakthrough-ocp/

Today Seagate said its new MACH.2™ Multi Actuator technology has enabled them to set a new hard drive speed record, demonstrating up to 480MB/s sustained throughput — the fastest ever. Seagate formally introduced its MACH.2 Multi Actuator technology yesterday, which has now been deployed in development units for customer testing prior to productization. Read below to learn more.

Seagate engineers have set a new record for how fast data can stream data off of a hard drive. With a Seagate hard drive equipped with its MACH.2 Multi Actuator technology, Seagate has demonstrated up to 480MB/s sustained throughput — the fastest ever from a single hard drive, and 60 percent faster than a 15K drive.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Interesting! Should make a decent "gaming drive".

 

[HutchinsonJC]

Kinda like RAID

Glancing the article there's this:

"MACH.2 solves the need for increased performance by enabling parallelism of data flows in and out of a single hard drive. By enabling the data center host computer to request and receive data from two areas of the drive in parallel, simultaneously, MACH.2 doubles the IOPS performance of each individual hard drive, more than offsetting any issues of reduced data availability that would otherwise arise with higher capacities."

I wonder why they didn't give us any write figures.

 

[XavierMace]

Meh. Sequential transfer isn't terribly useful for the general user. Random is and even double a normal hard drive is still laughably slower than an SSD. They're still pitching this with entirely a data center orientation which leads me to suspect price may be a factor for a general user anyways. New stuff is cool and all but I don't see this being much use to the average user.

 

[HutchinsonJC]

If price keeps it out of the hands of the general user, that would probably be a short term barrier.

It's nice to see advancements, but I think more people are wising up to knowing that they will want an SSD for their OS/apps/database drive... and a big giant mechanical drive for any kind of basic video/music/picture storage.

The random on a mechanical drive, as XavierMace points out, is leaps and bounds behind solid state, and that's pretty important as a performance metric that people who care about performance... are actually looking at.

 

[cbn]

If price keeps it out of the hands of the general user, that would probably be a short term barrier.

My guess is that this tech will eventually come to the Barracuda Pro 3.5", but it might take a couple of years.

The random on a mechanical drive, as XavierMace points out, is leaps and bounds behind solid state, and that's pretty important as a performance metric that people who care about performance... are actually looking at.

Random helps a lot, but increasing Sequential also does help as seen by these results using two RAID-0 hard drives:

(The RAID-0 hard drive sequential read is somewhere in between the Samsung 850 SSD and the single hard drive)

Samsung SSD 850 Pro 256GB: 30 seconds
2 x WD Black 4TB 7200 rpm RAID-0: 40 seconds
WD Black 4TB 7200 rpm: 48 seconds
Seagate Momentus 500GB 5400 rpm: 1 minute 42 seconds

Furthermore, I think this drive is rather interesting in that it will first time a single hard drive has enough Sequential to do 4K video editing (multi-track).

 

[cbn]

With this name Mach.2, I have to wonder if there will be a Mach.3? Mach.4? Mach.6?

With glass substrate allowing for 12 platters in a 3.5" housing I would think Mach.3 will eventually happen.

But what about going beyond that will we see a Mach.6 (which would be one actuator per two platters in a 12 platter drive)?

Some discussion between the greybeards (and Western Digital) emphasizing the importance of Sequential that makes me think more actuators will probably happen:

http://sci-zones.silvertonconsult.n...ent/uploads/Podcasts/2017/10/GBoS-PC-053B.mp3

Notice even Western Digital admits average block sizes are growing in this era of rich data. (reference 28.30 (and 28:40 ) to 29:26 in the pod cast. So throughput, much more than IOPs (<---This mentioned at 28:47 to 28:50 by one of the greybeards)). Of course, RAID rebuild times is another thing to consider (boosting Sequential helps this).

Going beyond servers (and Prosumer 3.5" drives) I also wonder if this tech will eventually trickle down to the 2.5" Barracuda Pro?

Take for example, the current 2.5" Barracuda Pro:

https://forums.anandtech.com/thread...-pro-hdds-7200-rpm-with-7mm-z-height.2539964/

^^^^ If only that had more Sequential write It could record 4K in an intermediate codec like DNxHR.

 

[HutchinsonJC]

Random helps a lot, but increasing Sequential also does help as seen by these results using two RAID-0 hard drives

I'm not making any attempt to say that sequential doesn't help, but SSDs have knocked that out of the park and mechanical drives struggle terribly with random.

At the end of the day, most people will vote with their wallet and their specific needs. So it's going to come down to price per performance in a big way.

 

[cbn]

At the end of the day, most people will vote with their wallet and their specific needs. So it's going to come down to price per performance in a big way.

Totally agree.

Right now I am using three New pull (from Dell Optiplex) mid-2017 manufacture WD5000AZLX hard drives in RAID-0 for 550 MB/s read. Total cost around $60 shipped.

As long as these recent manufacture new pull hard drives keep on showing up in the future (due to the popularity of SSD swaps) I will continue to consider them for fast, but cheap mass storage. Not sure how long that will continue though?

 

[aigomorla]

Sorry with 2 things now possible to fail in a seagate drive, i'll wait to see RMA counts before even recommending another seagate drive.

As they say in the racing industry, you need to be able to finish the race before you can even think about getting first place.

 

[cbn]

Here is an article where the Register asked Seagate and some IT experts about the possibility of a dual Pillar multi-actuator drive:

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/01/04/doubling_up_disk_drive_actuator_pillars/

So unlike the current idea of having 2 (or more) actuator arms on a single pivot there would an additional pivot added to the drive enclosure (adding another 2 (or more) actuator arms). See example below (from this 2009 article) of a two pivot point drive:

P.S. Using the following WD Velociraptor (2.5" platter in a 3.5" Icepack enclosure) as reference point I reckon Seagate could get a ~3" platter in between 2 actuator pillars sitting catty corner in a 3.5" enclosure.

I think such a design at 10,000 rpm could be interesting not only for sequential, but also for IOPS (especially IOPS when the data is being transferred to and from the media cache*)

*The media cache is located at the outermost portion of the platters and transfers to and from here take very little movement of the actuator (minimizing seek time).

Going beyond servers (and Prosumer 3.5" drives) I also wonder if this tech will eventually trickle down to the 2.5" Barracuda Pro?

Take for example, the current 2.5" Barracuda Pro:

https://forums.anandtech.com/thread...-pro-hdds-7200-rpm-with-7mm-z-height.2539964/

^^^^ If only that had more Sequential write It could record 4K in an intermediate codec like DNxHR.

With Seagate having external 2.5" drives with integrated battery pack I also wonder about the possibility of 2.5" multi-actuator drives operating at 4200 rpm. This would lower power consumption around 50%.

4200 rpm multi-actuator 2.5" might be pretty interesting for both internal and external usage.

 

[Brahmzy]

Does anybody know why SSD capacity/cost efficiency hasn’t arrived yet?
It seems like they keep advancing the tech and delivery methods, but the capacities are in the toilet in the consumer space. You’d think budget TLC SSDs would be in at least the 8TB-12TB affordable range by now for Joe consumer..

 

[cbn]

Does anybody know why SSD capacity/cost efficiency hasn’t arrived yet?
It seems like they keep advancing the tech and delivery methods, but the capacities are in the toilet in the consumer space. You’d think budget TLC SSDs would be in at least the 8TB-12TB affordable range by now for Joe consumer..

NAND has been dropping in price over the years. (It currently averages about 24% annual decrease in price per Gigabyte.)

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Does anybody know why SSD capacity/cost efficiency hasn’t arrived yet?
It seems like they keep advancing the tech and delivery methods, but the capacities are in the toilet in the consumer space. You’d think budget TLC SSDs would be in at least the 8TB-12TB affordable range by now for Joe consumer..

Based on what trend?

 

[cbn]

Looking at the Seagate roadmap below, it appears 12 actuators per drive are on the way:

I got the estimate for 12 actuators by comparing the IOPS per TB difference of the 40+TB single actuator vs. the IOPS per TB of the 40+TB multi-actuator. (NOTE: The difference in IOPS per TB is actually 14)

 

[nosirrahx]

Does anybody know why SSD capacity/cost efficiency hasn’t arrived yet?
It seems like they keep advancing the tech and delivery methods, but the capacities are in the toilet in the consumer space. You’d think budget TLC SSDs would be in at least the 8TB-12TB affordable range by now for Joe consumer..

8TB SSDs at the price of today's 512GB SSDs is still a few years off, 2 if we are super lucky. A super fast 512GB SSD for OS and critical apps paired with a large and relatively fast HDD is still far too good of an option to force the issue.

If HDD tech finds a way to compete in the large capacity sector there really is no reason for massive SSDs for consumers.

I can easily picture the average enthusiast class PC in 2020 being a blazing fast M.2 Gen 4 1TB SSD paired with a multi-actuator 16TB HDD.

 

[cbn]

If scaling up 12 actuators on a single pivot.....another thing Seagate could do is lower the RPM to drop power consumption (Sequential would still be very high due to the increased parallelism)

IOPS would be lower (compared to 12 actuators working with 7200rpm platters), but then by that time servers should have Non-volatile DIMMs in full force. (These could cache the small files)

 

[cbn]

If HDD tech finds a way to compete in the large capacity sector there really is no reason for massive SSDs for consumers.

I agree.

Though one thing I am still researching is shock resistance in laptops. (Apparently there are different kinds of free fall sensors)

 

[nosirrahx]

I agree.

Though one thing I am still researching is shock resistance in laptops.

Form factor is also key here. SATA SSDs are up to 4GB but M.2 is still only maxing out at 2GB. 8GB M.2 would be fantastic for laptops but we are a ways away from that being anything but astronomical in price.

 

[cbn]

Form factor is also key here. SATA SSDs are up to 4GB but M.2 is still only maxing out at 2GB. 8GB M.2 would be fantastic for laptops but we are a ways away from that being anything but astronomical in price.

That is true. I always see the SATA 2.5" SSD beating M.2 2280 in capacity for that reason alone.

Meanwhile I am interested in seeing what Seagate might do with multi-actuators, Helium, 4200rpm, thinner platters and Solid state cache (small files) for 2.5" HDDs?

Will that be enough to catch up to 2.5" form factor SATA SSDs (where controllers like the Phison S12 can handle up to 8TB of NAND)?

My guess is the 2.5" 7mm 5400 rpm Seagate drives could go from 2 platters to 3 platters with Helium. If rpm drops from 5400 rpm to 4200 rpm (+ using Helium) could they get 4 platters (by making the platters thinner)? If this were possible then 4TB (with current areal density) would be attainable, but the problem is that 4TB SATA SSD already exists.

I guess it boils down to how fast Samsung can increase density vs. how fast Seagate can increase areal density. (This assuming 4 platters @ 4200 rpm is even possible in 2.5" 7mm)

HAMR vs. NAND scaling (increasing layers, string stacking, feature size reduction via smaller process etc)

 

[biostud]

Another question is which kind of home users need more storage than an ssd can hold?

I jus bought a 2tb mx300 for $316, and I can't really see me filling it up for a long time.

 

[nosirrahx]

Another question is which kind of home users need more storage than an ssd can hold?

I jus bought a 2tb mx300 for $316, and I can't really see me filling it up for a long time.

Content creators that work from home. My best friend works in Hollywood and one of his current projects has 70TB of raw footage. He does not need SSDs to be that large obviously, just large HDDs and good NAS technology but he does need larger SSDs for NAS caching.

He would love those Samsung 4TB SSDs for caching but they are a fortune.

 

[cbn]

Another question is which kind of home users need more storage than an ssd can hold?

I jus bought a 2tb mx300 for $316, and I can't really see me filling it up for a long time.

Content creators that work from home. My best friend works in Hollywood and one of his current projects has 70TB of raw footage. He does not need SSDs to be that large obviously, just large HDDs and good NAS technology but he does need larger SSDs for NAS caching.

He would love those Samsung 4TB SSDs for caching but they are a fortune.

Yes I can imagine footage could use a lot of space. Even the footage from an affordable external recorder like the Atomos Ninja Flame shown below uses 104 MB/s for 4K30 DNxHR HQX:

And higher end Atomos models capable of 4K60 DNxHR HQX need 204 MB/s.

P.S. Would be great to see 2.5" Multi-actuator drives for use in these external recorders. (They do use 2.5" SATA drives)

 

[tynopik]

instead of multiple actuators, one wonders if they couldn't put multiple heads together on one arm so they could read/write multiple tracks simultaneously

 

[biostud]

Content creators that work from home. My best friend works in Hollywood and one of his current projects has 70TB of raw footage. He does not need SSDs to be that large obviously, just large HDDs and good NAS technology but he does need larger SSDs for NAS caching.

He would love those Samsung 4TB SSDs for caching but they are a fortune.

But that is for professional use, where there is always need for more storage.