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SMR is a magnetic storage data recording technology used in hard disc drives (HDDs) to boost storage density and overall per-drive storage capacity.
Perpendicular magnetic recording, or PMR, is the method used by conventional hard disc drives to record data; in contrast, shingled recording writes new tracks that partially overlap previously written magnetic tracks, making the previously written magnetic tracks narrower and enabling higher track densities.
The Global SMR SSD market accounted for $XX Billion in 2022 and is anticipated to reach $XX Billion by 2030, registering a CAGR of XX% from 2023 to 2030.
Western Digital Unleashes New Era of Growth for Cloud Market With World’s First 22TB CMR and 26TB UltraSMR HDDs. Western Digital is at the forefront of storage innovation with its extensive technology portfolio and leadership in areal density. Western Digital is on a clear road to providing 30+ TB with ePMR by utilising its proprietary OptiNAND technology, energy-assisted PMR (ePMR), triple-stage actuator (TSA), HelioSeal, as well as UltraSMR technologies.
Utilising Western Digital’s OptiNAND technology, the new ePMR drives achieve previously unattainable levels of capacity, performance, and data resiliency. On a seasoned 2.2TB/platter HelioSeal platform with ten discs, the 22TB CMR HDD integrates OptiNAND to achieve areal-density leadership.
Western Digital’s new UltraSMR technology combines OptiNAND with proprietary firmware that takes use of HDD system-level hardware developments to deliver huge block encoding and an enhanced error correcting algorithm that boosts tracks-per-inch (TPI) to enable increased capacity.
The end result is Western Digital’s new 26TB Ultrastar DC HC670 UltraSMR HDD, which offers 2.6TB of capacity per platter and 18% additional storage space for cloud clients who are optimising their stacks to benefit from SMR. The 26TB capacity acts as a tipping point to drive adoption as cloud service providers progressively include SMR in their datacenter roadmaps.
The HDDs, which are only possible with OptiNAND, also come with the ArmorCache write cache data safety feature, which gives users the performance of write cache enable (WCE) combined with the data security of write cache disable (WCD) for additional data protection or resiliency in the event of an emergency power off (EPO).
Of the modes chosen, this Write Cache Data Safety feature offers users performance and data protection for the first time in HDD history. The drives’ performance is significantly improved by OptiNAND in WCD mode as well, with the largest gains being seen in random writes with bigger block transfers.
IOPS and throughput increase in comparison to non-OptiNAND drives at standard HDD application transfer lengths of 256KB or more, with a peak improvement at 1MB transfer length.
