Western Digital Unveils MAMR HDD – A World’s First!

At their “Innovating To Fuel The Next Decade Of Big Data” event today, Western Digital has unveiled an innovation on ultra-high capacity hard disk drives with the demonstration of the world’s first microwave-assisted magnetic recording (MAMR) HDD. They expect for the ultra-high capacity MAMR HDD to start shipping in 2019.

The MAMR is one of two energy-assisted technologies that Western Digital has been developing for years. The other is heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR). Despite that, the latter presented new material science and reliability challenges that aren’t a factor on the MAMR. Thus, it demonstrated that MAMR had the reliability and cost profile that meets the demand of data center operators.

As the volume, velocity, variety, value and longevity of both Big Data and Fast Data grow, a new generation of storage technologies are needed to not only support ever-expanding capacities, but ultimately help our customers analyze and garner insights into our increasingly connected universe of data Mike Cordano , President and Chief Operating Officer at Western Digital

At the heart of Western Digital’s innovation breakthrough is the “spin torque oscillator” to produce a microwave field that raises the ability to record data at ultra-high density without sacrificing reliability. The MAMR technology is expected to offer 4 terabites-per-square-inch over time. MAMR promises to enable hard drives with 40TB capacity and more by 2025.

Western Digital’s demonstration of MAMR technology is a significant breakthrough for the hard disk drive industry. Commercialization of MAMR technology will pave the way to higher recording densities, and lower cost per terabyte hard disk drives for enterprise datacenters, video surveillance systems, and consumer NAS products John Rydning, research vice president, Hard Disk Drives, IDC

Western Digital’s micro actuation technology for data center applications enables hard drives to accurately and reliable position magnetic heads for writing and reading at ultra-high densities.

Pokdepinion: So in the future we’ll have 40TB worth of storage huh? That’s a definite increase on educational videos we can store!