Jump to content

Western digital to demo Dual-Actuator HDD's

LukeSavenije

Sources: @AluminiumTechAnandtech

 

Western Digital has revealed this week that it will demonstrate its first dual-actuator hard drives at OCP San Jose, 14-15 March 2019. Marking the company's first foray into multi-actuator drives, WD markets roughly twice the performance of a

single-actuator. Although they'll be trading off some power efficiency in the process.

 

Quote

Western Digital has rather high expectations for its dual-actuator HDDs. The company expects the new drives to offer double the sustained transfer rates as well as double the IOPS when compared to existing HDDs. Which if we use existing drives as a baseline, would mean that we're talking about data rates on the order of 500 MB/s as well as 160 ~ 200 IOPS. Meanwhile, although no official numbers were provided ahead of next week's formal reveal, the company did publish a photo of its dual-actuator prototype.

 

Quote

The trade-off for dual-actuator technology is that since these hard drives are essentially two HDDs in a single chassis, they will consume more power than traditional drives. But it's still 26% less than two independent HDDs, owing to the fact that it's still a single set of spinning platters. For example, Western Digital’s Ultrastar 14 TB SATA hard drive consumes 7.6 W in operating mode, and a pair of such HDDs would be 15.2W. Meanwhile, a hypothetical dual-actuator hard drive that consumes 26% less than these two would end up at around 11.25W, which, importantly, is within power limits of a typical 3.5-inch SATA bay (typically up to 12 W).

 

I personally think this is a bit of a move to come back one more time with hdd's, but it doesn't make sense to me. these days hard drives are just for long-lasting, big drives. as far as I know there aren't many people that care about their hard drive speed, except that it's at least 7200 rpm and has a small cache

 

but you're allowed to change my opinion

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

For the consumer market, I think it's a case of too little too late.

Solid State/gb prices have plummeted since they became "mainstream", mass storage via SSD is becoming more affordable on an almost-daily basis. Given the significant speed advantage and operational reliabilty that they bring, I see mechanical drives going the way of the dodo, or the VCR if you'd like to up-date by a year or two. It's a matter of when it will happen. I still retain one mechanical drive in my current system (which brings to light that my signature is outdated), but that's largely because it's still functioning, and i haven't found a need to add additional space in my system yet. Until then though, faster read/writes are definitely a positive.

~Remember to quote posts to continue support on your thread~
-Don't be this kind of person-

CPU:  AMD Ryzen 7 5800x | RAM: 2x16GB Crucial Ripjaws Z | Cooling: XSPC/EK/Bitspower loop | MOBO: Gigabyte x570 Aorus Master | PSU: Seasonic Prime 750 Titanium  

SSD: 250GB Samsung 980 PRO (OS) | 1TB Crucial MX500| 2TB Crucial P2 | Case: Phanteks Evolv X | GPU: EVGA GTX 1080 Ti FTW3 (with EK Block) | HDD: 1x Seagate Barracuda 2TB

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

While very cool, this in theory doubles the chance of actuator failure (which is probably the most common way for Drives to fail). Something to keep in mind.

"If a Lobster is a fish because it moves by jumping, then a kangaroo is a bird" - Admiral Paulo de Castro Moreira da Silva

"There is nothing more difficult than fixing something that isn't all the way broken yet." - Author Unknown

Spoiler

Intel Core i7-3960X @ 4.6 GHz - Asus P9X79WS/IPMI - 12GB DDR3-1600 quad-channel - EVGA GTX 1080ti SC - Fractal Design Define R5 - 500GB Crucial MX200 - NH-D15 - Logitech G710+ - Mionix Naos 7000 - Sennheiser PC350 w/Topping VX-1

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

It's first but not world's first

Conner Peripherals Chinook 510 MB drive

 

 

Regardless, SSD prices are plummeting. 1TB for $100 nowadays. Only thing they're really good for is archive storage and speed doesn't matter that much at that point, especially since storage tiering is becoming mainstream.

PLEASE QUOTE ME IF YOU ARE REPLYING TO ME

Desktop Build: Ryzen 7 2700X @ 4.0GHz, AsRock Fatal1ty X370 Professional Gaming, 48GB Corsair DDR4 @ 3000MHz, RX5700 XT 8GB Sapphire Nitro+, Benq XL2730 1440p 144Hz FS

Retro Build: Intel Pentium III @ 500 MHz, Dell Optiplex G1 Full AT Tower, 768MB SDRAM @ 133MHz, Integrated Graphics, Generic 1024x768 60Hz Monitor


 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, Semper said:

For the consumer market, I think it's a case of too little too late.

Solid State/gb prices have plummeted since they became "mainstream", mass storage via SSD is becoming more affordable on an almost-daily basis. Given the significant speed advantage and operational reliabilty that they bring, I see mechanical drives going the way of the dodo, or the VCR if you'd like to up-date by a year or two. It's a matter of when it will happen. I still retain one mechanical drive in my current system (which brings to light that my signature is outdated), but that's largely because it's still functioning, and i haven't found a need to add additional space in my system yet. Until then though, faster read/writes are definitely a positive.

exactly. as dram gets better and better the hdd will get as obselete as the cd/dvd: some still use them, but there are better alternatives

 

4 minutes ago, bcredeur97 said:

While very cool, this in theory doubles the chance of actuator failure (which is probably the most common way for Drives to fail). Something to keep in mind.

that's actually a really good one... go tell WD

 

1 minute ago, rcmaehl said:

It's first but not world's first

Seagate?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, Semper said:

Solid State/gb prices have plummeted since they became "mainstream", mass storage via SSD is becoming more affordable on an almost-daily basis.

I disagree, specially outside USA the difference between 1TB HDD and 1TB SSD is still more than meaningful.

Personal Desktop":

CPU: Intel Core i7 10700K @5ghz |~| Cooling: bq! Dark Rock Pro 4 |~| MOBO: Gigabyte Z490UD ATX|~| RAM: 16gb DDR4 3333mhzCL16 G.Skill Trident Z |~| GPU: RX 6900XT Sapphire Nitro+ |~| PSU: Corsair TX650M 80Plus Gold |~| Boot:  SSD WD Green M.2 2280 240GB |~| Storage: 1x3TB HDD 7200rpm Seagate Barracuda + SanDisk Ultra 3D 1TB |~| Case: Fractal Design Meshify C Mini |~| Display: Toshiba UL7A 4K/60hz |~| OS: Windows 10 Pro.

Luna, the temporary Desktop:

CPU: AMD R9 7950XT  |~| Cooling: bq! Dark Rock 4 Pro |~| MOBO: Gigabyte Aorus Master |~| RAM: 32G Kingston HyperX |~| GPU: AMD Radeon RX 7900XTX (Reference) |~| PSU: Corsair HX1000 80+ Platinum |~| Windows Boot Drive: 2x 512GB (1TB total) Plextor SATA SSD (RAID0 volume) |~| Linux Boot Drive: 500GB Kingston A2000 |~| Storage: 4TB WD Black HDD |~| Case: Cooler Master Silencio S600 |~| Display 1 (leftmost): Eizo (unknown model) 1920x1080 IPS @ 60Hz|~| Display 2 (center): BenQ ZOWIE XL2540 1920x1080 TN @ 240Hz |~| Display 3 (rightmost): Wacom Cintiq Pro 24 3840x2160 IPS @ 60Hz 10-bit |~| OS: Windows 10 Pro (games / art) + Linux (distro: NixOS; programming and daily driver)
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

Just now, Princess Cadence said:

I disagree, specially outside USA the difference between 1TB HDD and 1TB SSD is still more than meaningful.

Europe disagrees with you...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, LukeSavenije said:

Seagate?

"Conner Peripherals"... Founded by Seagate's Finis Conner... so I guess?

PLEASE QUOTE ME IF YOU ARE REPLYING TO ME

Desktop Build: Ryzen 7 2700X @ 4.0GHz, AsRock Fatal1ty X370 Professional Gaming, 48GB Corsair DDR4 @ 3000MHz, RX5700 XT 8GB Sapphire Nitro+, Benq XL2730 1440p 144Hz FS

Retro Build: Intel Pentium III @ 500 MHz, Dell Optiplex G1 Full AT Tower, 768MB SDRAM @ 133MHz, Integrated Graphics, Generic 1024x768 60Hz Monitor


 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Princess Cadence said:

I disagree, specially outside USA the difference between 1TB HDD and 1TB SSD is still more than meaningful.

Living in the states, I don't have direct experience with prices outside my readily reachable world.

It may be that there is a disparity between mechanical and SSD in parts of the world, but unless it's truly an archaic economy that you live with, that gap has closed since SSD's went mainstream meaning that it is becoming more affordable, even if not at an acceptable point yet.

My first SSD was purchased in 2012, overwhelmingly unremarkable in terms of speed (I don't remember my real-world speeds any longer) and capacity was an unimpressive 120gb. I can buy a 1tb MX500 slightly cheaper than that SSD today.

~Remember to quote posts to continue support on your thread~
-Don't be this kind of person-

CPU:  AMD Ryzen 7 5800x | RAM: 2x16GB Crucial Ripjaws Z | Cooling: XSPC/EK/Bitspower loop | MOBO: Gigabyte x570 Aorus Master | PSU: Seasonic Prime 750 Titanium  

SSD: 250GB Samsung 980 PRO (OS) | 1TB Crucial MX500| 2TB Crucial P2 | Case: Phanteks Evolv X | GPU: EVGA GTX 1080 Ti FTW3 (with EK Block) | HDD: 1x Seagate Barracuda 2TB

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

23 minutes ago, LukeSavenije said:

I personally think this is a bit of a move to come back one more time with hdd's, but it doesn't make sense to me. these days hard drives are just for long-lasting, big drives. as far as I know there aren't many people that care about their hard drive speed, except that it's at least 7200 rpm and has a small cache

Would anyone be mad if their hard drives were faster, making them a much more viable option for non-ssd based game, media, and file storage?

 

I certainly wouldn't be.

Give the technology some time to advance and you might be seeing hard drives with speeds equal to or greater than many consumer grade SSDs.

Specs: CPU - Intel i7 8700K @ 5GHz | GPU - Gigabyte GTX 970 G1 Gaming | Motherboard - ASUS Strix Z370-G WIFI AC | RAM - XPG Gammix DDR4-3000MHz 32GB (2x16GB) | Main Drive - Samsung 850 Evo 500GB M.2 | Other Drives - 7TB/3 Drives | CPU Cooler - Corsair H100i Pro | Case - Fractal Design Define C Mini TG | Power Supply - EVGA G3 850W

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, LukeSavenije said:

Europe disagrees with you...

Basically, for us Europeans, it's the following formula:

 

$ = € + 20-something % VAT = actual price in €

 

Though I don't think HDD's are dead yet. 5TB HDD paired with 512GB SSD as cache (using PrimoCache) is pretty sweet combo imo. Huge storage capacity with amazing day to day usage speeds. And cloud servers won't go to SSD anytime soon due to capacity/price limits. Not long ago I re-done a 2TB HDD + 128GB SSD NVMe combo with PrimoCache for a relative and it was pretty fast. After second reboot, it was booting into Windows as fast as my full on SSD system. Same for launching GTA5. First launch was regular, 3rd was stupendously faster. Granted, I've donated him my 2TB HDD, but the SSD for the cache was like 40€.

 

So, pairing such dual head beast with SSD can bring some pretty sweet speeds with faster speeds before stuff gets cached. So you make the gap a bit smaller.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Semper said:

It may be that there is a disparity between mechanical and SSD in parts of the world, but unless it's truly an archaic economy that you live with, that gap has closed since SSD's went mainstream meaning that it is becoming more affordable, even if not at an acceptable point yet.

image.png.455a5965bf32d81700da753e8d076ac3.png

 

Cheapest 1tb Barracuda you can find in Brasil goes for R$189,99 which is US$ 49,34 by today's exchange.

Cheapest 1tb SSD which is a low end questionable Kingston A400 goes for R$ 749,90 which is US$ 194,76.

 

150 dollars over-price on countries with much shittier salaries than USA makes a huge difference, so all I'm saying is that HDDs are still extremely important for a great number of markets, it's not pointless.

Personal Desktop":

CPU: Intel Core i7 10700K @5ghz |~| Cooling: bq! Dark Rock Pro 4 |~| MOBO: Gigabyte Z490UD ATX|~| RAM: 16gb DDR4 3333mhzCL16 G.Skill Trident Z |~| GPU: RX 6900XT Sapphire Nitro+ |~| PSU: Corsair TX650M 80Plus Gold |~| Boot:  SSD WD Green M.2 2280 240GB |~| Storage: 1x3TB HDD 7200rpm Seagate Barracuda + SanDisk Ultra 3D 1TB |~| Case: Fractal Design Meshify C Mini |~| Display: Toshiba UL7A 4K/60hz |~| OS: Windows 10 Pro.

Luna, the temporary Desktop:

CPU: AMD R9 7950XT  |~| Cooling: bq! Dark Rock 4 Pro |~| MOBO: Gigabyte Aorus Master |~| RAM: 32G Kingston HyperX |~| GPU: AMD Radeon RX 7900XTX (Reference) |~| PSU: Corsair HX1000 80+ Platinum |~| Windows Boot Drive: 2x 512GB (1TB total) Plextor SATA SSD (RAID0 volume) |~| Linux Boot Drive: 500GB Kingston A2000 |~| Storage: 4TB WD Black HDD |~| Case: Cooler Master Silencio S600 |~| Display 1 (leftmost): Eizo (unknown model) 1920x1080 IPS @ 60Hz|~| Display 2 (center): BenQ ZOWIE XL2540 1920x1080 TN @ 240Hz |~| Display 3 (rightmost): Wacom Cintiq Pro 24 3840x2160 IPS @ 60Hz 10-bit |~| OS: Windows 10 Pro (games / art) + Linux (distro: NixOS; programming and daily driver)
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

Just now, TheKDub said:

Would anyone be mad if their hard drives were faster, making them a much more viable option for non-ssd based game, media, and file storage?

 

I certainly wouldn't be.

Give the technology some time to advance and you might be seeing hard drives with speeds equal to or greater than many consumer grade SSDs.

it might... but hdd's in general have their problems too

 

it's a head going over a metal plate, with two heads it's not getting better

 

they make more sound than a load of chips and a controller

 

and they have moving parts...

2 minutes ago, CarlBar said:

Europe does not.

my part does

 

1 minute ago, RejZoR said:

Though I don't think HDD's are dead yet. 5TB HDD paired with 512GB SSD as cache (using PrimoCache) is pretty sweet combo imo. Huge storage capacity with amazing day to day usage speeds. And cloud servers won't go to SSD anytime soon due to capacity/price limits. Not long ago I re-done a 2TB HDD + 128GB SSD NVMe combo with PrimoCache for a relative and it was pretty fast. After second reboot, it was booting into Windows as fast as my full on SSD system. Same for launching GTA5. First launch was regular, 3rd was stupendously faster. Granted, I've donated him my 2TB HDD, but the SSD for the cache was like 40€.

i don't think they're dead yet either

 

i just think they will be sooner than you think...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

Just now, CarlBar said:

On phone so can't link but atm from OCUK 4tb ssd is 》1200 pounds. A 14TB HDD is just over 500.

i won't go against you in really high ones. but if we look at 1tb (which are pretty common) they get closer and closer

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

@LukeSavenije

For home users, certainly. I've had SSD in my netbook when ACER Aspire One were still a thing. Atom N270, 1GB RAM and 160GB HDD. Which I swapped for Intel x25M 80GB SSD. After that, there was no turning back. My next laptop had Crucial M4 128GB and next one that I currently have came with 256GB Samsung SSD out of the box (that's not even a DRAM-less crap!). I've switched to 2TB SSD in my main system around 3-4 years ago after running it as hybrid cache for around 2 before that. There is no way I'll ever go back to HDD unless I'd need 10TB or more for some reason for which SSD is still just too costly.

 

For laptops, you don't really need massive capacities and you can get 1TB SSD's cheap now. The rest you put on external HDD which are also cheap. Servers I think will run HDD's for quite a while.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, LukeSavenije said:

it might... but hdd's in general have their problems too

 

it's a head going over a metal plate, with two heads it's not getting better

 

they make more sound than a load of chips and a controller

True, and they also create more vibration and heat, while consuming more power.

 

That said, they're still significantly more cost effective than SSDs, especially as you go up in capacity. (4TB HDDs for $100, 6TB HDDs for $150, 10TB HDDs for $300, vs 1TB SSDs for $150, 4TB SSDs for $700, 15.36TB SSDs for $6100)

Specs: CPU - Intel i7 8700K @ 5GHz | GPU - Gigabyte GTX 970 G1 Gaming | Motherboard - ASUS Strix Z370-G WIFI AC | RAM - XPG Gammix DDR4-3000MHz 32GB (2x16GB) | Main Drive - Samsung 850 Evo 500GB M.2 | Other Drives - 7TB/3 Drives | CPU Cooler - Corsair H100i Pro | Case - Fractal Design Define C Mini TG | Power Supply - EVGA G3 850W

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

Better speeds are surely only a good thing. Obviously they need to be thoroughly tested for resiliency and life expectancy etc, but if they equal or better current HDDs and they can keep the prices down to almost same as existing HDDs, then I'm on board. For gamers this will be huge, this may negate the need for an SSD altogether, or at the very least lessen the need for such a big SSD, so you'd only need it for the boot device for the system.

Please quote my post, or put @paddy-stone if you want me to respond to you.

Spoiler
  • PCs:- 
  • Main PC build  https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/2K6Q7X
  • ASUS x53e  - i7 2670QM / Sony BD writer x8 / Win 10, Elemetary OS, Ubuntu/ Samsung 830 SSD
  • Lenovo G50 - 8Gb RAM - Samsung 860 Evo 250GB SSD - DVD writer
  •  
  • Displays:-
  • Philips 55 OLED 754 model
  • Panasonic 55" 4k TV
  • LG 29" Ultrawide
  • Philips 24" 1080p monitor as backup
  •  
  • Storage/NAS/Servers:-
  • ESXI/test build  https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/4wyR9G
  • Main Server https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/3Qftyk
  • Backup server - HP Proliant Gen 8 4 bay NAS running FreeNAS ZFS striped 3x3TiB WD reds
  • HP ProLiant G6 Server SE316M1 Twin Hex Core Intel Xeon E5645 2.40GHz 48GB RAM
  •  
  • Gaming/Tablets etc:-
  • Xbox One S 500GB + 2TB HDD
  • PS4
  • Nvidia Shield TV
  • Xiaomi/Pocafone F2 pro 8GB/256GB
  • Xiaomi Redmi Note 4

 

  • Unused Hardware currently :-
  • 4670K MSI mobo 16GB ram
  • i7 6700K  b250 mobo
  • Zotac GTX 1060 6GB Amp! edition
  • Zotac GTX 1050 mini

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, LukeSavenije said:

i won't go against you in really high ones. but if we look at 1tb (which are pretty common) they get closer and closer

 

Who's using a HDD for 1TB though, (new). Tou pretty much don't buy HDDS below a couple of TB and really your starting to push 4TB plus now as a real world minimum point.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

Just now, RejZoR said:

@LukeSavenije

For home users, certainly. I've had SSD in my netbook when ACER Aspire One were still a thing. Atom N270, 1GB RAM and 160GB HDD. Which I swapped for Intel x25M 80GB SSD. After that, there was no turning back. My next laptop had Crucial M4 128GB and next one that I currently have came with 256GB Samsung SSD out of the box (that's not even a DRAM-less crap!). I've switched to 2TB SSD in my main system around 3-4 years ago after running it as hybrid cache for around 2 before that. There is no way I'll ever go back to HDD unless I'd need 10TB or more for some reason for which SSD is still just too costly.

 

For laptops, you don't really need massive capacities and you can get 1TB SSD's cheap now. The rest you put on external HDD which are also cheap. Servers I think will run HDD's for quite a while.

and there is where i think hdd's are and probably will be for a couple years. but in the end it'll be replaced at this speed. even servers start using ssd's more and more, even if it's just for cache

 

2 minutes ago, TheKDub said:

True, and they also create more vibration and heat, while consuming more power.

 

That said, they're still significantly more cost effective than SSDs, especially as you go up in capacity. (4TB HDDs for $100, 6TB HDDs for $150, 10TB HDDs for $300, vs 1TB SSDs for $150, 4TB SSDs for $700, 15.36TB SSDs for $6100)

that's true... it's more a future look, as we've seen the rapid speed the ssd development has. the cost has gone down hardcore

 

2 minutes ago, paddy-stone said:

Better speeds are surely only a good thing. Obviously they need to be thoroughly tested for resiliency and life expectancy etc, but if they equal or better current HDDs and they can keep the prices down to almost same as existing HDDs, then I'm on board. For gamers this will be huge, this may negate the need for an SSD altogether, or at the very least lessen the need for such a big SSD, so you'd only need it for the boot device for the system.

but we all know, new things cost more money... maybe in the future it can be something, but for today, i don't see the use yet

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

Just now, CarlBar said:

Who's using a HDD for 1TB though, (new). Tou pretty much don't buy HDDS below a couple of TB and really your starting to push 4TB plus now as a real world minimum point.

as a regular visitor of the new builds sections, 1 and 2 tb is really common there

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

27 minutes ago, Princess Cadence said:

I disagree, specially outside USA the difference between 1TB HDD and 1TB SSD is still more than meaningful.

Inside the US as well. Cheap SSDs are still considerably more expensive than good HDDs.

Come Bloody Angel

Break off your chains

And look what I've found in the dirt.

 

Pale battered body

Seems she was struggling

Something is wrong with this world.

 

Fierce Bloody Angel

The blood is on your hands

Why did you come to this world?

 

Everybody turns to dust.

 

Everybody turns to dust.

 

The blood is on your hands.

 

The blood is on your hands!

 

Pyo.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

I just can't imagine loading anything from the HDD. The one I donated was a WD Caviar Black 2TB that was nearly Velociraptor speeds. It was unbearably slow compared to after we cached the thing with SSD. Or compared to any of my laptops or desktop with SSD only. HDD is bearable if you don't know any better. But once you go SSD it's over.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

×