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  • Hurr Durr - Saturday, September 16, 2017 - link

    Can someone remind me when consumer 16Tb is planned to become available, as in attached storage?
  • iwod - Saturday, September 16, 2017 - link

    Pretty sure the answer may be never. 8+ TB HDD may never arrive in the consumer space.
  • Blindsay - Saturday, September 16, 2017 - link

    you already can get 8 and 10TB consumer drives
  • Gothmoth - Saturday, September 16, 2017 - link

    yeah don´t know what he is talking about but sure not seagate Iionwolf 10 TB drives or WD red WD100EFAX. you can even get them at amazon.
  • Guspaz - Monday, September 18, 2017 - link

    Yes, at roughly the same cost-per-gig (or even a little more) as I paid 4 years ago when I bought a bunch of 4TB HGST drives. Drives have gotten bigger, but the costs haven't dropped in a long time.
  • Gothmoth - Saturday, September 16, 2017 - link

    where do you live.... antarctica? LOL

    i can buy 10 TB drives at every electronic store around here.
  • eriri-el - Monday, September 18, 2017 - link

    I am very sure there are other continents besides Antarctica that doesnt have 10 TB HDD in their local electronic stores. Try going to back to school and and understand that there other countries beside your country, you pitiful sad being.
  • JoeyJoJo123 - Monday, September 18, 2017 - link

    Would be nice if you didn't get so triggered(tm) at some random online comments.
  • icedeocampo - Tuesday, September 19, 2017 - link

    and it would be nicer if...
  • at80eighty - Saturday, September 16, 2017 - link

    try setting your clock to 2017 bud.
  • Samus - Sunday, September 17, 2017 - link

    Wow. This statement is plain fucking stupid. Saying anything may never arrive in the consumer space, short of a time machine and a nuclear bomb, lacks all imagination. 50 years ago, people like you said 'computers' would never become consumer devices.

    As soon as HAMR is ironed out, will have 20TB+ consumer drives, probably in a few years.
  • Armus19 - Sunday, September 17, 2017 - link

    I think he is just a bit out of touch but that he has a point. SSD's may simply kill off old style harddrives. Also, who needs massive storage at home these days? For nearly everyone existing drives are more than enough now that ppl stream movies rather than download.

    Yes ofc datacenters have use for more capacity, but they may be able to adopt SSD type technologies quicker than home users.

    I think the picture isn't as clear as it might seem. And since HDD manufacturers aren't really pushing it to release higher capacity, I think, so do they.
  • Hurr Durr - Sunday, September 17, 2017 - link

    Well, if you want to actually own your content, you will need storage.
  • egmccann - Monday, September 18, 2017 - link

    depends on your needs. If all you want to do is surf the web and stream media? Sure. No reason for anything more than a smallish (<1 Tb) SSD. Some of us do other things with our computers, though - and like to have those things available to us even if there are internet issues.
  • jabber - Friday, September 22, 2017 - link

    Yeah I'm one of those that feels more than 1TB of data is a major liability and millstone round my neck. I hate having 'precious' data. So I don't hoard movies or music. I also try to take as few pics as possible. I never look at them hardly so what's the point? Personal data is a liability and whether you own it or not can be so fleeting and vulnerable to obsolescence.
  • DanNeely - Sunday, September 17, 2017 - link

    Dunno about that. HAMR should lift capacities a lot; but I've read it's expected to be expensive. If that's the case I wouldn't be surprised it if doesn't trickle down below high end prosumer drives (eg WD Red Pro) for a long time after general availability if ever. Mid 2020's projections for flash surpassing spinning rust as the cheapest way to get a terabyte of storage suggest that many still in R&D HDD techs will either never see the light of day or get trapped in premium market segments indefinitely.
  • Samus - Monday, September 18, 2017 - link

    In 2009, almost a decade ago, when the Intel X25-M 160GB went mainstream, then the SSD320 with 600GB capacity a year later, people proclaimed NAND would be in the gigabytes for a fraction the cost in short time. 7 years later, prices have only marginally dropped when contrasting with spinning glass.

    Listen, I think 40 year old hard disk technology (winchester technology) needs to die at some point. It is just amazing we still rely on technology pioneered in the 70's for practically all mass storage. But at the same time, NAND is not the short term solution. It wasn't 10 years ago, and it won't be 10 years from now. There is no way in the next decade NAND will be price competitive with magnetic/optical storage. The trends and prospects of each competing technology affirm my observation.

    Sure, HAMR will be expensive, but it will explode density, probably doubling capacity of enterprise drives and making consumer drives (and yes, there will be consumer HAMR just like there is now consumer Helioseal) large and affordable at the expense of some performance and warranty length.

    Yes, the world is going mobile, the world depends on less local storage, and the world is streaming, but content is larger than ever, and will continue to expand. In a decade, who knows, we might need 12TB drives just to store a few movies. We need to keep pushing the envelope on all fronts. It just pisses me off when someone says something wont hit the consumer space. The consumers are the final frontier for any marketable product, be it a hard disk, autonomous vehicle, or space pod to travel to another planet.
  • hlm - Monday, September 18, 2017 - link

    I hope HAMR can succeed, but I am wondering if MAMR will be the way to go with HAMR struggling with heat issues.
  • Samus - Monday, September 18, 2017 - link

    One way or another, we will always have larger drives for less as time goes on. How we get there is really irrelevant as long as it isn't through some ghetto side-stepping like SMR. I'm not one to trust Seagate on new technologies, either. Hitachi developing Helioseal is one thing, that was Hitachi. Seagate developing something unarguably much more complex like HAMR leaves a lot to be desired when considering reliability. I just don't think Seagate is up to the task. They're the Chrysler of hard drive manufactures.
  • saratoga4 - Saturday, September 16, 2017 - link

    Seagate was saying they'd do 16GB HAMR drives, probably in 2018. Of course HAMR is forever delayed, so that date might slip.
  • damianrobertjones - Sunday, September 17, 2017 - link

    I bet if they'd annoinced 16Tb you'd have asked for 20.
  • versesuvius - Saturday, September 16, 2017 - link

    36 TB, anybody?
  • Risk - Saturday, September 16, 2017 - link

    Yes, please. Higher density works just fine for this consumer "enthusiast".
  • MrSpadge - Saturday, September 16, 2017 - link

    Of all the meaningless arbitrarily high numbers, why did you choose 36? Isn't 42 much nicer?
  • Slaveguy - Saturday, September 16, 2017 - link

    I have a 12' long chain that I use to crack lips and teeth that belong to trash just like you
  • LordSojar - Sunday, September 17, 2017 - link

    I think you're on the wrong site.... the BDSM site is this way ----->
  • MajGenRelativity - Tuesday, September 19, 2017 - link

    What?
  • ltcommanderdata - Saturday, September 16, 2017 - link

    "For example, boutique PC makers, as well as DIY enthusiasts, may start using the WD Gold 12 TB for their high-end builds, something they could not do with the HGST drives. These HDDs may be considered as an overkill for desktops, but since WD’s desktop offerings top at 6 TB, the WD Gold (and the perhaps inevitable future WD Red Pro 12 TB) is the WD’s closest rival for Seagate’s BarraCuda Pro drives."

    So is there any concern with using TLER HDDs on non-RAID desktops in terms of data integrity? With TLER and without RAID is data corruption more likely since the drive no longer tries to recover from errors as aggressively? I've read there's no longer any way to disable TLER on newer WD NAS HDDs.
  • ddriver - Saturday, September 16, 2017 - link

    HGST HE10 are perfectly acceptable. Hardware raid is a bad idea. ZFS FTW. Putting mechanical storage in a workstation - bad idea. Dedicated build, ECC, a good HBA, a fast and durable SSD for cache. And you are set for several years, HGST drives are very reliable if you buy from someone who handles shipments with care. I never ever order HDDs online and wait for shipment to my door, I go straight to the warehouse of the primary importer and buy from there.
  • extide - Saturday, September 16, 2017 - link

    Another vote for ZFS here. For anyone still on the fence about SW RAID, think about it, most RAID cards have 3-400Mhz PowerPC chips on them from 90's vintage, any modern multi-core multi Ghz cpu is going to be able to calculate parity sums significantly faster. Plus then your array isn't tied to specific HW, for example if your RAID card dies, you need to find another that will recognise your array, whereas with SW RAID it will work in just about any system. All they need to add to ZFS is the ability to expand an existing VDEV in-place, or have it redistribute data evenly across an array if you add VDEVs..
  • Samus - Monday, September 18, 2017 - link

    ZFS is awesome. What Storage Spaces should have been all along. But of course Microsoft fucked it up.
  • Reflex - Sunday, September 17, 2017 - link

    "I never ever order HDDs online and wait for shipment to my door, I go straight to the warehouse of the primary importer and buy from there."

    No, no you don't. The vast majority of 'primary importers' are not permitted to sell direct. You were doing fine when you explained why you prefer ZFS (I'm more mixed on that position but meh), and I ignored the usual stupidity about ECC and your imagined benefit, but once again you had to suddenly make yourself into a self-imagined tech god with your supposed connections to 'primary importers' whatever that statement actually means.

    Tone it down a notch or twelve and people wouldn't mock you quite so much.
  • ddriver - Sunday, September 17, 2017 - link

    Yes they do, just not to nobodies like you. Not only am I able to buy directly, but I enjoy 10% discount as a valued big volume customer. Also skipping door delivery when shopping HDDs has a huge effect, it reduces DOA, early and late failures by orders of magnitude.

    ZFS without ECC? Sure thing genius, if you like data corruption and feel like losing entire pools. Most prebuilt and barebone NAS boxes come with ECC as well, which is the very reason intel made low end products which support ECC. ECC is mandatory if your data matters, be that NAS, server or workstation. Just because your data doesn't, it doesn't mean everyone's data doesn't.

    Also, you seem to confuse "people" with "buthurt losers like you who got repeatedly called on their BS and pwned" ;) It only goes to show how clueless you are, assuming such groundless and pathetic intimidation techniques as "people mocking" would work on me. And to show you how friendly and caring I am, I will give you an advice - your current approach will never do anything for that inferiority complex of yours. Put more effort in improving yourself rather than cultivating denial for the achievements of others.
  • Hurr Durr - Sunday, September 17, 2017 - link

    You protest too much, hehehe.
  • damianrobertjones - Sunday, September 17, 2017 - link

    There's a life out there, waiting, just for you... .
  • LordSojar - Sunday, September 17, 2017 - link

    I dare say... big volume customer? Highly. Unlikely. But alrighty then...
  • Reflex - Monday, September 18, 2017 - link

    He didn't define what 'primary importer' means. The channel has many layers, and there are authorized and grey market sellers. If primary importer means whoever ships the drives to the dock, then no he isn't buying from them directly since they do not sell directly regardless of volume. They have established clients who are the first stage distributers. You *can* get a direct deal with that layer, but its difficult and you need volume equivalent to Newegg or Amazon to get a deal there. Even the US government does not buy 'directly', the closest they would get would be someone like Ingram Micro.
  • BrokenCrayons - Monday, September 18, 2017 - link

    There's your answer then. ddriver is obviously a dock worker and makes "purchases" directly from the insides of shipping containers that accidentally break open during unloading. :)
  • Reflex - Monday, September 18, 2017 - link

    There is also the fact that buying from the factory vs home delivery really has no impact on reliability rates. Modern HDD's park the heads in a stable/secure way when powered off and have since the early 00's. You can toss around a powered off drive in reasonable packing all you want and are unlikely to damage it.
  • Reflex - Sunday, September 17, 2017 - link

    Cool story bro.
  • Reflex - Sunday, September 17, 2017 - link

    https://forums.anandtech.com/search/396521/
    https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/pm-from-lordr...
  • Diji1 - Sunday, September 17, 2017 - link

    "It only goes to show how clueless you are, assuming such groundless and pathetic intimidation techniques as "people mocking" would work on me."

    The fact that you write multiple paragraphs in response shows what people mocking you does - it makes you write more idiocy demonstrating your lack of knowledge as you double down on the same thing that got you mocked in the first place.
  • Samus - Monday, September 18, 2017 - link

    I'm personally most comfortable buying spinners at Microcenter or Fry's, ideally in retail packaging, but in the end it doesn't matter. Those drives are shipped securely on a pallet in a 53 foot trailer. The FedEx intern wasn't given the opportunity to whip it up a flight of stairs and jump back in his truck. Beep beep.
  • bill.rookard - Saturday, September 16, 2017 - link

    While I certainly appreciate having a high capacity spinny disk, how about putting some R&D into some affordable cost high capacity 3.5" SSD's?
  • Chriz - Saturday, September 16, 2017 - link

    I doubt that will happen because they (and other companies) don't care much about SATA SSD's anymore except for the low end. Maybe it could happen if the U2 connector catches on more for NVMe drives.
  • Vatharian - Sunday, September 17, 2017 - link

    I hope not! SFF-8643 should stay where it belongs: between HBAs and backplanes, in a rack. Get the hell out of my consumer motherboard! We just barely avoided the disaster of SATA Express. Both have no place here. As a matter of fact the moment SAS 12G has been left without its SATA counterpart, we were left stuck in the past.

    My reasoning for that is there is absolutely no place for these server-space interfaces to trickle down to John Doe's world, is that we're not going to see any motherboard supporting for example 6 to 8 drives, like it's common with SATA. Beside that, cabling is inconsistent (requiring SFF-8639 for a drives themselves and ugly molex/sata power adapter), and on top of that today chipsets plainly do not have enough bandwidth to handle that kind of transfers.

    From my point of view, best course of action would be introducing NVM-e capable standard that would be backwards compatible with existing SATA (with a fallback for older hardware), including single cable for transfers.

    Yes, I know, it's not going to happen.
  • ddriver - Saturday, September 16, 2017 - link

    They are affordable. 350$ for 10 TB of storage is pretty good.

    Put 8 of those in a Z2 pool, and you have yourself over 50 TB of decently reliable storage, fast enough to saturate a 10 gbit link. Total cost of drives plus the nas hardware - less than 4000 $

    If you go SSD, for the same price and reliability, you'd max out at about 7 TB for SATA or 4 TB of NVME.

    As I've mentioned before, there is quite a lot of headroom to improve mechanical storage performance, however the industry is reluctant to do so. They make more money on flash, especially amidst this artificial shortage, so HDDs will be barely incremental.
  • extide - Saturday, September 16, 2017 - link

    The thing about SSD's is damn near all the BOM cost is the flash itself, so putting more flash into a physically larger drive will just increase the costs a lot, to the point where they would only be suitable for enterprise customers. There is actually a company that makes a 50TB 3.5" SSD -- but don't expect it to be cheap.

    I knew someone who used to insist that 3.5" SSD's would be cheaper, because making things smaller makes them cost more, right? Well the thing he didn't realise is with a 2.5" SSD, they aren't 'making it smaller' -- that's just the default size. Making them bigger just adds more room for more flash which then costs more.
  • Cyanara - Saturday, September 16, 2017 - link

    Is it safe to say that, being enterprise drives, these would meet and exceed any design attributes recommended for NAS (ie be a fully appropriate alternative to WD Red)?
  • Cyanara - Saturday, September 16, 2017 - link

    It's just that these are better value than 10TB WD Red Pro locally even without looking at performance or reliability.
  • chaos215bar2 - Sunday, September 17, 2017 - link

    Very strange, and WD doesn't seem to be keen on describing what's different. WD Red Pro is clearly marketed as a "NAS" drive, while the Gold is marketed for "Enterprise". Gold does seem to have better specs, but maybe Red has better shock protection? Everything I can find is basically marketing gobbledygook.
  • DanNeely - Sunday, September 17, 2017 - link

    They should be fine. Enterprise drives need to be vibration tolerant enough to survive being stuffed into a rack full of HDDs. WD's Red and Red Pro drives launched being rated as vibration tolerant in 4 and 8 drive arrays respectively (although I think WD raised the limit a few years later).

    10 TB Red Pro prices do look off at the moment though vs the Gold drives. I'd expect the prices to normalize over time though; I'm guessing it's just retailers dragging their feet on price drops to try and maximize what they can get out of their existing stock; especially if they're a low volume dealer and are stuck with having bought a lot of the Red Pros at a higher wholesale price.
  • Samus - Sunday, September 17, 2017 - link

    This drive is orgasmic. I'm glad WD bought Hitachi.
  • Visual - Sunday, September 17, 2017 - link

    Considering I paid 200 EUR (so like $240) for a 8TB LaCie Porsche Design USB 3, their pricing for 12TB is nuts. HDD manufacturers are really getting greedy these last few years...
  • damianrobertjones - Sunday, September 17, 2017 - link

    If people will pay they'll keep raising that price.
  • thewishy - Monday, September 18, 2017 - link

    Pricing for the highest capacity points has always been non-linear. Some will pay because the associated costs (Drive trays, rack space, higher end NAS, electric etc) make it worthwhile for them. Others will go for the price/capacity sweet spot, 8tb at the moment I believe - which is where the manufacturers have the most available production and don't need to faf around with helium to match the required density.
  • Vatharian - Sunday, September 17, 2017 - link

    It is nice to see they started to offer 10 TB drives, at last! 10.9TB, even! Pointing they money grab aside, it will take at least 12h 27min to fill the highest capacity drive. Insane!
  • Lolimaster - Monday, September 18, 2017 - link

    HARM still nowhere to be found, I would never consider an HDD with more than 4 platters.
  • Wolfpup - Monday, September 18, 2017 - link

    And these are REGULAR drives, not that "shingled" stuff?

    Man, 12TB...I bought 2 8TB drives a year or two ago when they were the largest. Glad we finally seem to be growing in size, though they're EXPENSIVE. Drive sizes are just not keeping up with the need to store data.

    And I guess "Gold" is the Enterprise/server drive from WD, while "Red/Red Pro" is the NAS/almost-enterprise drive? (My 8TB drives are Seagate, sans catchy name lol)
  • Cyanara - Monday, September 18, 2017 - link

    Oh, I'm sure they're shingled. That was how they made 10TB possible. There doesn't seem to be a big hit to write performance as predicted though.
  • Cyanara - Tuesday, September 19, 2017 - link

    No, sorry. I'm apparently a liar. I may have confused that with helium. According to this article, they are not shingled: https://techgage.com/news/western-digital-introduc...

    Which makes a lot of sense given the performance of these bad boys. I'm impressed they can make that capacity work though.
  • LuckyWhale - Saturday, September 23, 2017 - link

    It's usually better to get lower capacity and cheaper drives in a RAID 5/6 array then get a single big drive. Even if you don't use RAID, you will lose only half the data with the same failure probability.

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