The future of Hard Disk Drives

Hard Disk Drives: The world’s favourite storage media is not going anywhere.

Storage – it’s a critical consideration for your data centre. It’s becoming ever-more important, as well, with the glut of data now flooding organisations from so many different sources. And, while new storage technologies have certainly been developed, hard disk drives have been and continue to be the favourite media for storage within most data centres.

What is it that hard disk drives (HDDs) offer that makes them so popular? Why do they have such staying power, particularly in the face of things like cloud storage and flash storage? We’ll delve into the answers to these questions and more in this post.

The advent of Hard Disk Drives.

Traditional disk drives have been around for a long time. But just how long? Evolving from magnetic drum storage dating back to the 1930s, Hard Disk Drive technology debuted back in 1956 and has been a mainstay since then. That’s not to say that it hasn’t evolved over time. It has to a considerable degree. However, today’s drives are still recognisable when compared to those of yesterday.

Yes, they’re smaller, denser, faster, and more accurate, but that doesn’t mean that an engineer from the 1960s wouldn’t recognise the similarities between older drives and newer options.

The overstated death of Hard Disk Drives.

When solid-state drives (SSDs) began to gain popularity a decade or so ago, there was a lot made over the death of hard disks. Flash memory is much faster, admittedly. They can also offer much greater densities. For instance, quad-level cell SSDs can offer up to 30 TB in a 2.5-inch drive that will fit just about anywhere.

However, HDDs are still here. They have not faded away. And what’s more, there’s an ever-growing number of use cases for them, as well.

How do Hard Disk Drives work?

For those who’ve become accustomed to flash memory or even those who’ve grown up using SSDs instead of HDDs, the technology here can seem mysterious. How do HDDs work?

Perhaps the best analogy is one of a record player, but one where the needle can both read (play the music) and write (record the data for storage). Within the hard disk drive, there is a spinning disk (called a platter). This is the actual storage media. It spins just like a record on a record player does, while an arm writes the data. Data is read and written by changing the platter’s magnetic field.

Of course, all these moving parts mean that HDDs are not as stable or as risk-free as SDDs are. The disk must be spun-up to operating speed, and sudden stops can lead to data loss. Mechanical failure is also a real problem. Given that SDDs don’t suffer from these problems and that they can store more data in a very small footprint, what’s behind the curiously long life of the HDD?

Why are HDDs still so popular?

You’ll find many different reasons behind the popularity of HDDs. We’ll tackle several of the more important ones below.

1. Capacity.

While SSDs certainly offer more density than hard disk drives, it’s not by as much as you might think. The industry recently introduced a 20 TB model, which improved maximum density by 2 TB, up from the previous max, which was 18 TB. While that is still lower than what SSDs can offer, when you combine it with some of the other benefits out there, it’s one reason so many people choose HDDs for their data centres. And don’t think that manufacturers will stop at 20. As data centres continue to demand more density and capacity, you can expect to see larger and larger drives coming to market very soon.

2. Cost.

SSDs have become much more affordable in recent years. However, they still cost appreciatively more than hard disk drives. Now, take that cost difference and factor it over the entire data centre (and beyond – think about the workstations throughout the organisation that need storage). Giving up a few TB of storage to save a considerable amount of money is an attractive thought, particularly given that many organisations can take advantage of a mixture of on-site and cloud storage.

3. The growth of Cloud Providers.

Cloud storage is hugely popular, and for good reason. And, while many people use cloud storage for frequently accessed files, more and more are using them for archived workloads. For those who want to access archived data very quickly, HDDs are the only solution. This also dovetails with the cost factor. With 20 TB of storage and the ability to access archived storage quickly, cloud providers are buying up HDDs very quickly.

4. HDD-SDD Partnerships.

Once upon a time, HDD read/write speeds were the gold standard for which models took top billing in the market. Today, things are changing. HDD manufacturers realise that hard disk drives simply cannot compete with the speed of solid-state drives and have adopted the mentality of “if you can’t beat them, join them.” In this case, quite literally. Hybrid drives that combine SDD and HDD technology offer the best of both worlds – very fast drives that cost less than pure SDDs.

5. The growing number of Use Cases.

Finally, we have a wide range of use cases for hard disk drives. In addition to archiving , which we’ve already mentioned, you’ll find that HDDs are playing a significant role in the following needs:

• Analytics and Research
• Data Backup
• Disaster Recovery
• Energy-Assisted Technologies
• Enterprise Applications
• Local Storage
• Lower-Tier Storage to Support High-Performance Systems

The right Storage Solution for your needs.

Data storage is more critical than ever before and support for it is vital.

At Support 24/7 we can provide cost-effective 24/7 cover for your business critical equipment and even better value Next Business Day support for those drives that aren’t so time critical.

If you would like to know how Support 24/7 can help your company with cover for all your Data Centre Equipment and Software Support, please contact us here.