Seagate has been delivery its 22TB arduous drives that includes its hybrid shingled magnetic recording (HSMR) to pick clients amongst operators of hyperscale cloud datacenters for a few quarters now. However it appears like the corporate is prepping 22TB HDDs for a broader market.
Seagate’s Osprey (STL022) arduous drive is at present on SATA-IO’s integrators record, that means that the HDD has efficiently handed SATA interoperability testing. Moreover, the Osprey HDD carries STxxxxxNM0092-3CX103 half quantity, which confirms that this can be a nearline (NM) drive however doesn’t disclose the precise capability of the unit (which isn’t notably stunning as Seagate’s HDD platforms supply a number of capability factors). In the meantime, Seagate’s Exos X20 20TB codenamed LongsPeak carried STL020 code (additionally talked about within the integrators record), which in all probability implies capability.
To this point, Seagate has not publicly talked about its Exos X22 platform providing capacities of as much as 22TB. Nonetheless, it has acknowledged the event of CMR HDDs that includes capacities of over 20TB, so it’s affordable to count on the launch of 22TB items this yr. In the meantime, primarily based on Seagate’s feedback, we don’t count on these drives to make use of heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) know-how.
Seagate’s 22TB arduous drive options standard magnetic recording know-how (CMR. It’s going to compete towards Western Digital’s Ultrastar DC HC570 22TB HDD, which additionally makes use of CMR know-how and will likely be broadly obtainable to pick clients with software program that may carry out SMR administration and all events.
SATA-IO, which oversees the event and adoption of the Serial ATA know-how, often conducts interoperability assessments for present and upcoming {hardware} to make sure that it’s compliant with the spec and is appropriate with different SATA units. Sadly, many PC and server OEMs require SATA drives and controllers to go SATA-IO’s interoperability assessments earlier than utilizing them. In consequence, in lots of instances, new SATA units find yourself in SATA-IO’s integrators’ record months earlier than precise shipments and availability.
In the meantime, not all hyperscalers want SATA-IO’s interoperability assessments as they qualify HDDs of their environments and with their software program themselves. It’s maybe why Western Digital’s Ultrastar DC HC600-series SMR HDDs which might be solely obtainable to pick exascalers will not be listed in SATA-IO’s integrator’s record despite the fact that they’ve been delivery for years.