HDDs
Data storage requirements have kept increasing over the last several years. While SSDs have taken over the role of the primary drive in most computing systems, hard drives continue to be the storage media of choice in areas dealing with large amount of relatively cold data. Hard drives are also suitable for workloads that are largely sequential and not performance sensitive. The $/GB metric for SSDs (particularly with QLC in the picture) is showing a downward trend, but it is still not low enough to match HDDs in that market segment. Since the release of the last HDD guide (coinciding with Seagate's launch of the Ironwolf Pro and Exos 18TB drives, and Western Digital's introduction of the 16TB and 18TB WD Red Pro models)...
HGST Deskstar NAS 6 TB Review
The increasing affordability of SSDs has put a strain on the traditional market for hard drive vendors. However, hard drives continue to remain the storage medium of choice for...
36 by Ganesh T S on 12/23/2014Seagate Enterprise NAS HDD 6 TB Review
Hard drives continue to remain the storage medium of choice for applications where capacity and cost factors outweigh performance requirements. Vendors have also realized that enterprise hard drives are...
52 by Ganesh T S on 12/10/2014Seagate Enterprise NAS HDD: WD Red Pro Gets a Competitor
We have seen this story play out before. Western Digital delineates the hard drive market with a product aimed at a particular niche and Seagate comes in a few...
22 by Ganesh T S on 12/2/2014HGST Deskstar NAS 4 TB Review
The increasing affordability of SSDs has put a strain on the traditional market for hard drive vendors. However, new opportunities have opened up, thanks to the rapid growth in...
39 by Ganesh T S on 11/22/2014WD Red Pro Review: 4 TB Drives for NAS Systems Benchmarked
A couple of weeks back, Western Digital updated their NAS-specific drive lineup with 5 and 6 TB Red drives. In addition, 7200 RPM Red Pro models with 2 -...
62 by Ganesh T S on 8/8/20146 TB NAS Drives: WD Red, Seagate Enterprise Capacity and HGST Ultrastar He6 Face-Off
Western Digital launched the first NAS-specific 6 TB drive today. In expanding their Red portfolio, they have brought 6 TB drives suitable for 24x7 operation into the hands of...
84 by Ganesh T S on 7/21/20145TB 3.5” Enterprise HDD from Toshiba Announced
Despite the focus on immediate storage is on the solid-state drive, whenever a large backup is needed then the mechanical hard-disk drive is still reigning supreme, and the demand...
42 by Ian Cutress on 2/15/2014The WD Black2 Review: World's First 2.5" Dual-Drive
If you had asked me a few years ago, I would've said that hybrid drives will be the next big thing in the storage industry. A hybrid drive made...
100 by Kristian Vättö on 1/30/2014Western Digital Releases Black^2: 120GB SSD + 1TB HD Dual-Drive in 2.5" Form Factor
To date all the hybrid storage solutions we have seen have been rather limited. Seagate got the idea right with the Momentus XT but having only 8GB of NAND...
66 by Kristian Vättö on 11/25/2013Hardware Tricks: How to Not Fix a Crashed Hard Drive
Earlier this year, I posted a short story and video of my attempt at – and success – repairing a Gateway notebook that was suffering a Code 43 GPU...
66 by Jarred Walton on 9/13/2013Seagate to Ship 5TB HDD in 2014 using Shingled Magnetic Recording
It's not just planar NAND that's running into physical limits lately. According to Seagate, its latest 1TB platter 3.5" drives have shrunk read/write heads as small as they can...
27 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 9/9/2013Seagate's Ultra Mobile HDD: Putting HDDs in Android Tablets
In a move I honestly never thought would happen, Seagate is announcing today plans to brings its 5mm 2.5" Laptop Ultrathin HDD to Android tablets. The drive will come...
42 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 9/9/2013Battle of the 4 TB NAS Drives: WD Red and Seagate NAS HDD Face-Off
The SMB / SOHO / consumer NAS market is expected to experience good growth over the next few years. With declining PC sales and increase in affordability of SSDs...
54 by Ganesh T S on 9/4/2013Western Digital Updates Red NAS Drive Lineup with 4 TB and 2.5" Versions
In July 2012, we saw Western Digital tackle the burgeoning NAS market with the 3.5" Red hard drive lineup. They specifically catered to units having 1-5 bays. The firmware...
29 by Ganesh T S on 9/3/2013Computex 2013: Silicon Power and Rugged Portable Storage
Silicon Power are currently a brand dealing with memory and flash storage, but on visiting their offices as part of our Computex 2013 activities they had a couple of...
5 by Ian Cutress on 6/8/2013Western Digital Launches WD Se Hard Drive Lineup for Datacenters and High-end NAS Units
One of the most interesting launches from Western Digital last year was the WD Red line of hard drives from the client storage division. It was intended for low...
23 by Ganesh T S on 5/28/2013Seagate to Discontinue 7200rpm 2.5" Drives Later This Year
Earlier today X-bit Labs reported that Seagate will stop the production of their 7200RPM 2.5" drives by the end of this year and I just got a confirmation from...
57 by Kristian Vättö on 3/1/2013Hands On With Western Digital's New 5mm Hybrid Hard Drive
Remember the 5mm hybrid HDD announcement from yesterday? I just spent some time with the drive itself at the IDF Tech Showcase. The 5mm drive will be OEM-only at...
17 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 9/11/2012Western Digital Teases 5mm Hybrid Hard Drive
Intel's Ultrabook push has forced hard drive makers to do two things: take hybrid drives more seriously (because of the Ultrabook performance requirements) as well as focus on thinner...
13 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 9/10/2012WD Introduces Red: NAS Optimized HDD Line
WD did everyone a favor when they reorganized their products under color-coded branding a few years ago. With the Blue (mainstream), Green (quiet and cool) and Black (performance) lines...
39 by Jason Inofuentes on 7/10/2012