Connect with us

Gadgets

Western Digital Reimagines the Hard Drive

Published

on

At the company’s HDD Reimagine event, Western Digital introduced a new flash-enhanced drive architecture that breaks traditional boundaries of storage. Building on the company’s unique ability to innovate with HDD and flash, the new storage architecture with OptiNAND technology optimises and integrates HDDs with iNAND embedded flash drives. This gives customers – like hyperscale cloud, CSPs, enterprises, smart video surveillance partners, NAS suppliers, and more – a solution to meet the exponential growth in data creation by delivering the capacity, performance, and reliability needed to store vast amounts of data today and well into the future.

Leveraging industry-first technologies including a triple-stage actuator (TSA) and HelioSeal technology, the first products featuring the new drive architecture will deliver an unsurpassed 2.2TB per platter, extending capacity gains on proven ePMR technology. Setting a new industry milestone, Western Digital has shipped samples of new nine-disk, 20TB ePMR flash-enhanced drives with OptiNAND technology to select customers.

“Western Digital has a history of hard drive architecture innovations, such as when HGST (now part of Western Digital) first hermetically sealed and shipped helium HDDs in 2013,” said Ed Burns, research director for hard disk drives at IDC. “Driven by the growth of AI, ML, blockchain, IoT, sensors, and more, there’s no doubt that new storage innovations are needed to store and protect today’s data growth, especially at scale. As the only company manufacturing both flash and HDDs, Western Digital can uniquely leverage their in-house capabilities to extend the areal density curve of ePMR drives for generations to come, helping customers meet the growing demands of a digital economy.”

“This new architecture is a natural extension of Western Digital’s strengths and capabilities, delivering a new evolution of storage to the market,” said Billy Chen, vice president of New H3C Group, president of Compute and Storage Product Line. “As an early customer, the OptiNAND technology is exciting as it will help us meet our storage needs for years to come.”

Unlike a hybrid drive where flash is used to store user data, the new architecture is a breakthrough in storage that works differently, enabling advances on multiple dimensions of storage capability. By adding vertically integrated iNAND to its world-class HDDs, and with enhanced firmware algorithm and SoC innovations, Western Digital’s flash-enhanced drives with OptiNAND technology deliver improved capacity, performance, and reliability to help customers meet growing storage demands.

Highlights include:

  • Capacity: The drive works smarter, with enhanced firmware algorithms taking advantage of expanded metadata that has been offloaded to the iNAND, enabling more tracks per inch (TPI) with resulting increased areal density.
  • Performance: Drive latency is improved with proprietary optimizations to drive firmware focused on requiring fewer adjacent track interference (ATI) refreshes and reducing the need for write cache flushes in write cache-enabled mode.
  • Reliability: Nearly 50x more customer data can be retained in the event of emergency power off (EPO) scenario, and with Western Digital’s unique capabilities in vertically integrated supply, design, development, testing and qualification of flash-enhanced drives, customers can count on the drive’s reliability.

“With our IP and world-class development teams in HDD and flash, we are able to continuously push the boundaries of innovation to improve our customers’ storage infrastructure,” said Siva Sivaram, president of Global Technology and Strategy, Western Digital. “We have had an extraordinary journey of HDD innovation. We changed everything with HelioSeal in 2013; were first to ship energy-assisted HDDs in volume in 2019, and now we’re going to lead again with OptiNAND technology. This architecture will underpin our HDD technology roadmap for multiple generations as we expect that an ePMR HDD with OptiNAND will reach 50TB in the second half of the decade.” 

The new flash-enhanced drive architecture with OptiNAND technology will be available across the company’s portfolio of drives and storage platforms. It will also serve as the foundation for future designs and innovations, with further advances to come in intelligence, reliability, capacity, and time-to-market value. The company will begin announcing market-specific, purpose-built products across its portfolio later this year.

Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Gadgets

Corsair Introduces K70 PRO TKL

Published

on

CORSAIR has unveiled the K70 PRO TKL, a tenkeyless keyboard that redefines the standards of gaming performance. Powered by CORSAIR’s innovative MGX Hyperdrive magnetic switches and featuring cutting-edge technologies like Rapid Trigger and FlashTap, the K70 PRO TKL is designed to dominate the competitive gaming scene.

The K70 PRO TKL introduces CORSAIR’s MGX Hyperdrive magnetic switches, which utilize Hall-effect sensors for lightning-fast activation. Combined with Rapid Trigger, these switches accelerate actions by registering and resetting keypresses instantly, surpassing the capabilities of traditional mechanical switches. The customisable actuation distance, ranging from 0.1mm to 4.0mm, allows gamers to tailor the keyboard to their specific preferences.

The K70 PRO TKL also offers FlashTap, a revolutionary SOCD system that enables esports-grade character movement. By prioritizing the first or last keypress, FlashTap significantly enhances in-game movement, particularly for rapid-strafing and move-mirroring techniques.

The wired-only K70 PRO TKL boasts 8,000Hz hyper-polling, ensuring ultra-fast keystroke registration. CORSAIR’s AXON hyper-processing technology further minimizes input lag and delay, giving gamers a decisive edge in critical moments.

The K70 PRO TKL delivers a premium gaming experience with its pre-lubricated MGX Hyperdrive switches, which offer a consistent and wobble-free keystroke. The keyboard’s sound-dampening foam reduces unwanted noise, creating a quieter and more immersive gaming environment.

Continue Reading

Gadgets

ASUS Celebrates One-Year Anniversary of NUC Portfolio

Published

on

ASUS has announced that it has made significant achievements and launched groundbreaking AI innovations following its official takeover of the NUC portfolio from Intel in October 2023. In October 2023, ASUS undertook the significant task of taking over Intel’s NUC portfolio and continuing the 10-year legacy of NUCs, which have been deployed to millions of customers worldwide. This marked the first time that ASUS has been involved in such a large-scale industry transition. Over the past year, ASUS seamlessly and successfully transitioned customers from the legacy Intel NUC portfolio to the ASUS NUC portfolio.

ASUS NUCs are now synonymous with top-tier performance, exceptional quality, and reliability. These attributes ensure that ASUS NUCs stand out in the market, offering an alternative to traditional desktops in a compact, mini-sized package, providing users with superior computing solutions that are both innovative and dependable. Whether for professional workloads, gaming, or AI applications, ASUS NUCs deliver the power and stability required for even the most demanding tasks and ensure that users thrive in this new AI era.

“As we celebrate our first anniversary of the successful takeover of the NUC portfolio from Intel, we remain committed to pushing the boundaries of innovation and delivering cutting-edge technology to our customers,” said Jackie Hsu, Senior Vice President and Co-Head of the Open Platform Business Group and AIoT Business Group. “The introduction of the world’s first AI mini PC and a seamless transition for existing NUC users underscore our dedication to maintaining our leadership position in the industry.”

ASUS continues to push the boundaries of what is possible in the computing industry with the introduction of the AI NUC – the world’s first AI mini PC powered by an Intel Core Ultra processor (Series 2) with Microsoft Copilot+. These AI-enabled NUCs feature the latest NPU, GPU, and CPU architectures, enabling customers to design for the future of AI. ASUS NUC 14 Pro AI, which was recently unveiled at IFA 2024, allows users to experience the next level of AI performance, unlocking new possibilities for advanced computing tasks. This compact powerhouse offers a mini PC alternative to laptop AI PCs, providing more flexible options for AI-driven computing.

In addition, the ROG NUC/NUC 14 Performance is a new expansion of the ASUS AI NUC offering. The ROG NUC and NUC 14 Performance mark significant strides in ultra-small form factor computing. These devices are tailored for both gamers and versatile commercial use, integrating high-performance components into compact designs.

Continue Reading

Gadgets

Nothing Shows Off Industry’s First Co-Created Smartphone

Published

on

Nothing today unveiled the outcomes of The Community Edition Project. The Phone (2a) Plus Community Edition is Nothing’s first co-created product, where some of its most talented followers worked directly with the Nothing Team. From hardware to wallpapers, packaging to marketing, this smartphone has been entirely shaped by the imagination of Nothing’s community.

Nothing is pioneering a new way of working that seeks to erase the barrier between company and community. The project generated significant excitement, with over 900 entries from 47 countries around the world. The Community Edition Project is Nothing’s first major pilot to cocreate hardware, software, and content with its community, marking a key step towards shaping the future of the business together.

Winners Astrid Vanhuyse & Kenta Akasaki, Andrés Mateos, Ian Henry Simmonds and Sonya Palma, collaborated closely with Nothing’s Design Studio, Creative, Brand and Marketing teams in London to further refine their winning concepts. The result of this collaboration between the Nothing team and the community is Phone (2a) Plus Community Edition, a glow-in-the-dark interpretation of the popular Phone (2a) Plus.

Stage 1 – Hardware Design
Astrid Vanhuyse & Kenta Akasaki collaborated with Nothing’s Design Director Adam Bates and CMF Designer Lucy Birley, experimenting with a variety of materials and colours to bring their “Phosphorescence” concept to life, all while preserving the device’s core Nothing identity. Using green-tinted phosphorescent material finishes, elements of the back of the phone emit a soft glow in dark environments. This feature is purely analogue, requiring no power source, and can last for hours before gradually fading until it recharges by daylight.

Stage 2 – Wallpaper Design
Building on the hardware design, Andrés Mateos used a mix of AI tools and digital design to create the “Connected Collection”. Initially tasked with developing four wallpapers, Andrés, along with Nothing’s Software Design Director Mladen M Hoyss and Software Designer Ken Giang, decided to expand the final collection to six wallpapers.

Stage 3 – Packaging Design
Ian Henry Simmonds reinterpreted Nothing’s packaging design with his “Less is More” concept – a graphically bold, yet simple super-macro crop. The final packaging includes reflective elements which glow in dark environments to complement the winning hardware design.

Stage 4 – Marketing Campaign
Sonya Palma brought all the elements together with her intimate and powerful campaign concept, “Find your light. Capture your light”. This compelling campaign echoes Nothing’s very first product launch where “pure instinct” was at the campaign’s centre. Both allude to the idea that we all have an inner power that deserves to be explored. Sonya worked with Nothing’s Creative Team to develop a suite of elevated assets, including a film campaign and digital assets that supported the launch of the product.

According to Nothing, co-creation is at the core of the company’s mission. While Phone (2a) Plus Community Edition is the Community Team’s largest project to date, Nothing says it is constantly working with community members to co-develop software and content. In 2022, Nothing also introduced the role of a Community Board Observer, an elected individual who represents the community at Nothing’s Board of Directors meetings.

The Community Edition Project phone is available across all markets and has been developed on Phone (2a) Plus. Nothing will produce just 1,000 units of Phone (2a) and Phone (2a) Plus Community Edition. In GCC only 150 pieces are available for sale in both UAE and KSA. Nothing fans can get their hands on the “Community Edition” only through the Nothing Instagram page: @nothingarabia and it will be priced at: AED1,649 in UAE and SAR1,749.

Continue Reading
Advertisement
Advertisement

Latest Reviews

Follow us on Facebook