Seagate HAMR R&D Delivers Leading Reliability
Mozaic 3+ HDDs is both present and future, with eye toward 50TB, but still maintaining 10 platters and 20 heads approach.
This is a Press Release edited by StorageNewsletter.com on April 9, 2024 at 2:02 pmIt sets a clear path for Mozaic 3+ mass-capacity storage implementing HAMR technology.
It has invested decades of scientific expertise, resources, and dedication into pioneering the next frontier in hard drive recording technology: HAMR.
Its implementation of HAMR and related technologies helps customers meet their expanding storage requirements by improving areal density, which is the measure of how much data can fit on a HDD platter and is usually expressed in terabytes per disk.
In response to firm’s customers’ ever-changing storage demands, the company continues to invest heavily in R&D building on its 4 decades of innovations that drove the PC revolution and subsequently accelerated the massive expansion of the global datasphere. The company has shipped billions of terabytes of data, and its dedication to R&D yields real benefits. The culmination of its hard drive efforts has resulted in the development of Mozaic 3+, firm’s unique implementation of HAMR technology to deliver mass-capacity storage at areal densities of 3TB/disk and beyond.
Mozaic 3+ is a composite of the most complex nanoscale recording technologies and material science breakthroughs. This solution is how data can now be stored to media at density levels that were previously unimaginable … all while using the same material resources as current Seagate HDDs and delivered in a 3.5-inch form factor. It is both the present and future, with an eye toward 50TB, but still maintaining a 10 platters and 20 heads approach.
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With Mozaic 3+, data center operators can store more exabytes in less space with fewer racks, amounting to massive TCO savings due to less energy consumed and floor space needed.
As is the case with any transformative technology, the narrative surrounding HAMR occasionally becomes clouded with myths, often inadvertently magnified by industry chatter.
These misconceptions range from its readiness, quality, and reliability to concerns about compatibility and ease of integration into existing data center storage architectures.
Now’s the time to set the record straight. Firm’s expert engineering teams have scrutinized, tested, and validated every facet of HAMR technology.
Mozaic 3+ HDDs blend into the data center ecosystem, mirroring the behavior and integration process of every other mainstream enterprise HDD. Numerous advancements in storage and HDD technology have emerged over time – most of which were refined and proven – and are now integrated into some of Seagate’s most advanced storage solutions.
Despite the difficulties of creating ground-breaking technology, the manufacturer has invested a lot into R&D with the goal of producing reliable products that are on par with or even better than its current flagship solutions.
Since 2016, it has run simulated field usage for Mozaic 3+ products and witnessed improvements in key components. In the last 2 years, the result has been a 50% increase in reliability – the same level as conventional PMR hard drives.
It was the 1st to bring HDDs with HAMR and related technologies to the market because it has tested and proved the reliability of its solutions. Here are some key stats on the topic to consider:
Keeping pace in MTBF
The MBTF for Mozaic 3+ HDDs is 2.5 million hours, which is also the current rate for firm’s Exos enterprise hard drives. Mozaic 3+ solutions will adhere to the same quality assurance specs required by all company’s products.
Exceeding reliability standards
Thousands of Mozaic 3+ RW heads have been tested and shown to reliably transfer data for more than 6,000 hours (about 8 months), equaling 3.2PB of data transferred on a single head. The test resulted in more than 20x the amount of data transferred on a typical nearline HDD.
Trusted components with new breakthroughs
More than 95% of the technology in Mozaic 3+ HDDs aligns with firm’s existing flagship products, ensuring adherence to the company’s HDD standard specs. Along with trusted, reliable components, customers will also benefit from new, tested engineering breakthroughs such as iron-platinum, nanoparticle media, and more.
Transition for Outstanding Results
The transition from conventional PMR to HAMR is seamless. Seagate uses the PMR-to-HAMR test process along with HAMR-specific testing. Since Mozaic 3+ drives are backwards-compatible with the most recent PMR drives, there will be no need to modify the enterprise specification, warranty, or form factor to use them. The difference is improvements to TCO with Mozaic 3+ solutions.
HDD life extension
Aggressive field use stress tests have demonstrated 7+ years of head life, which in most cases exceeds current PMR-based lifespans along with user expectations. While most customers expect modern PMR drives to last around 4 or 5 years (assuming an average amount of reads and writes), testing on company’s internal HAMR-based Mozaic 3+ drives has shown that they can withstand more use than that.
Tried and tested – Over half a million times
With a decade of experience manufacturing products integrated with HAMR and associated technologies currently behind us, the firm has produced and tested over 500,000 Mozaic 3+ units. Seagate is working with customers and partners around the world to garner valuable feedback on its introduction of these proven solutions.
Seagate HAMR R&D: Sound investment
Commited to producing the best drives is evident: Seagate has invested more than $2 billion to develop this reliable HAMR-integrated product and a robust supply chain. Its engineers drive the industry-leading technological innovations in our products and services and take every step needed to ensure firm’s advanced offerings are fully compatible, exceed reliability standards, are environmentally conscious, and satisfy customer requirements.
As global storage demand continues to surge, Seagate remains proactive, dedicating time and resources to advancing areal density through Mozaic 3+ solutions.
Resources:
Video: Seagate | Mozaic 3+ Hard Drive Platform: Where the Future Is Read and Written
Mozaic 3+ and its multiple technology breakthroughs
Enterprise Hard Drives Exos Mozaic 3+
What Is Mozaic 3+, How Does It Work, and What Can It Do for My Data Center?
About Seagate’s quality and reliability assurance
Comments
Comments from Seagate
The launch heralds unparalleled areal densities of 3TB+ per platter - and a roadmap that will achieve 4TB+ and 5TB+ per platter in the coming years.
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Highlights:
Superlattice Platinum-Alloy Media
Fundamental physics of higher-density recording requires smaller media grain size at nanoscale. The challenge here is that smaller grains are more unstable. Legacy alloys do not provide sufficient magnetic stability for effective and reliable storage. In Mozaic 3+ HDDs, the media alloy uses a pioneering iron-platinum superlattice structure, which increases the magnetic coercivity of disk media. This allows for precise data writing and bit stability.
Plasmonic Writer
Since the media are made magnetically ‘harder’ to prevent instability, the design requires a new writer - a marvel of miniaturization and precision engineering that is Seagate’s unique implementation of HAMR. Anchoring this technology is a nanophotonic laser, which produces an infinitesimal heat spot on the media surface to reliably write the data
Seagate plans to vertically integrate the nanophotonic laser into the plasmonic writer sub-system. “Developing this unique laser technology in-house for Mozaic 3+ will ensure even greater efficiency and yield to support rapid scaling of volume production,” Mosley said.
Gen 7 Spintronic Reader
Smaller grains of written data are only useful if they can be read. Integrated along with the sub-components of the plasmonic writer, the reader also needed to evolve. Incorporating quantum technology, Mozaic 3+ includes one of the world's smallest and most sensitive magnetic field reading sensors.
12nm Integrated Controller
Efficiently orchestrating all this technology called for an integrated controller, a SoC developed in house. This sophisticated application-specific integrated circuit delivers up to 3x the performance compared to prior solution.
In addition to data centers, Mozaic 3+ storage technology will enable a range of use cases, ranging from enterprise, to edge, NAS, and video and imaging applications (VIA) markets.
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