Whether on Valentine’s Day or any day of the year, there is much to admire about the hard disk drive (HDD). From its rich heritage across centuries to its workhorse status in the enterprise data center, here are the five things we love most about HDD.
1 A Rich History
The concept behind the operation of a hard disk drive is much older than you may think—nearly three centuries old to be precise, according to some accounts.
Back in 1725, a Frenchman named Basile Bouchon developed a paper tape that helped automate silk looms. Fast forward 80 years and fellow Frenchman Joseph Marie Jacquard went a step further. He built a machine that used punch cards to control the silk looms and make complex patterns simpler to compose.
This encouraged the wider adoption of punch card technology. By the late 1880s, the American Herman Hollerith was deploying punch cards that businesses could use to store data. Hollerith’s innovations around electromechanical tabulation helped lead to the foundation of International Business Machines, otherwise known as IBM.
By the 1950s, Big Blue was prototyping the earliest forms of the hard disk drive with its RAMAC—“Random Access Method of Accounting And Control”—technology based on the binary system of ones and zeros standard to punch cards.
The rest is HDD history, so to speak. Learn more about the history of hard drives.
2 Attractive Economics
IT managers and their teams have long valued the attractive economics of hard disk drives. For nearline storage, the low costs of HDD set against the availability of increasingly high capacities make for a winning combination.
Looking forward, the market outlook for HDD remains positive. Despite the accelerating (and welcome) adoption of solid state drives in enterprise computing, the 2020s are set to be the strongest decade yet for shipped HDD capacity. This comes amid burgeoning demand for low-cost storage as data generation balloons.
For its part, industry leader Seagate believes HDD will retain its price advantage over SSD until at least the middle of the 2030s. As Rainer Kaese of Toshiba Electronics Europe remarks, “There is still no way around HDDs for the cost-effective provision of storage capacity.”
For a detailed analysis of the outlook for HDD demand, read our latest account.
3 Constant Innovation
There’s little wonder that the three main hard drive manufacturers feel confident about the medium to long-term outlook for HDD technology.
After several years of areal densities flattening, hard disk drive technology appears poised for a new era of massively expanding capacities.
While both Seagate and Western Digital remain hot on HAMR (heat-assisted magnetic recording), WD is also holding a candle for MAMR (microwave-assisted magnetic recording). At the same time, Seagate points to its deployment of dual actuator technology as a means of unlocking additional input/output operations per second for improved read/write performance.
Then there’s the adoption of shingled magnetic recording (SMR), set to further boost capacities. Even amid advances in the NVMe-oF protocol and the rise of composable infrastructures, it’s an exciting time for HDD.
Increasingly storage is all about the cloud as artificial intelligence and big data ever more play a role in our day-to-day lives, increasing the need for cheap storage. Storage leaders such as Seagate and Western Digital continue to invest in improvements to hard disk technology, signalling that the game is far from up for HDD.
Stephen Buckler, chief operating officer Horizon Technology
4 Circular Storage For A Circular Economy
As data centers around the world expand their footprint to host the relentless growth of zettabytes, industry focus has increasingly turned to mitigating the environmental impact of data storage.
As it happens, hard disk drives are surprisingly good candidates for supporting sustainability in manufacturing. With a standard form factor and consistency in manufactured design, HDD is prime material for the development of what industry consortia iNEMI calls a circular value recovery system.
This circular system starts with designing for reuse and runs all the way through harvesting components when hard drives reach the end of their natural life.
With many hundreds of millions of HDDs in worldwide circulation, iNEMI argues that hard disk drives should be viewed as “technical nutrients” in a circular computing ecosystem.
Learn more about how reusing hard disk drives can benefit your organization while doing good for the environment.
5 The Benefits Of Factory Recertified Drives
Factory recertified drives are a great example of the circular economy in action.
Everyone knows the value of new enterprise hard drives when it comes to data center storage. But if you haven’t given much consideration to factory recertified in your data center, now might be the time to take a closer look.
Factory recertified drives are tested by the manufacturer using the same rigorous testing process, approved suppliers, and latest firmware that new drives must adhere to. This ensures all benefits of the latest program designs.
They come factory packaged with a standard 6-month warranty. That, along with the stringent testing guidelines required to earn the recertified label, make these drives the lowest failing drives in the market.
With factory recertified, you are getting a drive directly from the OEM that has actually gone through the test process twice and has the same quality and functionality as a new drive.
Mark Kier, director of business development at Horizon Technology
Full Service Care For HDD
At Horizon, we are proud of our track record in developing asset recovery partnerships with our clients that not only stand the test of time but grow in response to changing circumstances and technological advances.
The specificity and robustness of our workflows is core to the way we do business. Our record keeping, the security of our systems, and the competency of our process reflect directly on the competency of what we do and who we are.
From returns part management to kitting, shipping and everything in between, we are an IT asset recovery operation that has developed long-standing relationships with not only the OEMs but a wide range of standout players in the industry.
Working with an asset recovery specialist and authorized stocking distributor such as Horizon Technology, IT and supply chain managers can leverage our long-term relationship with the HDD OEMs and benefit from our customer-centric approach around storage supply challenges.
Get More Out Of Your Storage Relationship
For us, data center storage is something we live and breathe every day. We take hardware supply management and asset recovery seriously so you can access all of the benefits without the heavy lifting. Contact us today and let’s see how we can help.
