- Western Digital plans to supply 100TB+ HDDs inside a decade
- It can do that utilizing HAMR and HDMR warmth assisted applied sciences
- The corporate can be investigating long-term storage, like ceramics and DNA
Western Digital and Sandisk have begun the method of splitting into separate firms, with the previous centered on HDD and platform growth, and the latter now all-in on flash merchandise. Each firms not too long ago held investor days, and whereas Sandisk teased a 1PB SSD and a flash alternative for HBM at its occasion, WD’s focus was on the way it intends to supercharge arduous drive capability inside a decade.
The corporate’s roadmap to the way forward for HDD know-how reveals a transparent development from energy-assisted Perpendicular Magnetic Recording (ePMR) to Warmth-Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR) and finally to Warmth Dot Magnetic Recording (HDMR), focusing on over 100TB capacities.
By 2026, Western Digital says its HDD capability will attain 36TB-44TB due to HAMR know-how which makes use of laser heating to quickly scale back disk coercivity. This enables for smaller magnetic grains, enhancing information stability and density whereas decreasing interference, so HDDs can retailer extra information per platter with long-term reliability.
Enter HDMR know-how
Western Digital isn’t the one drive producer banking on HAMR to supercharge the capacities of arduous drives.
Its massive rival Seagate not too long ago debuted a 36TB drive whereas revealing a 60TB mannequin is coming, and in particularly dangerous information for WD, it additionally launched a bid to amass HAMR specialist Intevac whose sputtering machines are used on over 65% of the world’s arduous disks. Though Seagate is Intevac’s major buyer, WD additionally makes use of the corporate’s tech.
By the 2030s, Western Digital expects HAMR to be outdated by HDMR (also referred to as bit-pattern recording), which can lead the push for 100TB+ HDD capacities. The tech, which is reported to be fairly pricey, makes use of nano-patterned magnetic media with discrete magnetic “dots” to spice up information placement, scale back noise, and enhance areal density.
Western Digital isn’t solely specializing in conventional arduous drives, it’s additionally exploring new progress alternatives. In AI compute, the corporate is investigating superior computational fashions corresponding to Boltzmann and Ising, in addition to neuromorphic computing, which might allow extra environment friendly, brain-like processing architectures for AI workloads.
The corporate can be trying into long-term DNA and ceramic storage, two rising applied sciences which have the potential to supply extraordinarily sturdy and high-density information preservation for archival wants. Within the medtech sector, the corporate is contemplating growing magnetic biosensors and nanopore know-how, which might have vital functions in biomedical diagnostics and customized drugs.