WD Hard Drives with OptiNAND Technology

Main articles:

• Hard drive (magnetic drive, winchester, HDD)
• Hard Drives (Global Market)
• Hard Drives (Russian Market)

2021: Disk architecture with built-in flash memory for metadata storage

On August 31, 2021, Western Digital Corp. introduced a disk architecture improved by using flash memory. Building on its resources to build solutions for HDD drives and experience with flash technologies, the company has developed a storage architecture with OptiNAND technology that optimizes the operation of HDD drives using built-in flash memory iNAND. This solution enables customers such as scalable cloud providers, video surveillance services, networked storage, and other products to cope with the growth in data creation by providing the capacity, performance, and reliability required to store large amounts of data.

Thanks to technologies in the industry such as the three-segment actuator (TSA) mechanism and HelioSeal, the devices made on the disk architecture will provide a recording volume per plate - 2.2 TB, thereby increasing the recording volume achieved using ePMR technology.

"Western Digital has long been working on innovations in the field of disk architecture, since in 2013 HGST (as of 2021 it is part of Western Digital) performed a sealed closure of helium-filled hard drives and brought them to the market. With the development of artificial intelligence, machine learning, blockchain, the Internet of things, sensors and the like, there is no doubt a need for solutions to store and protect the ever-increasing amount of data, especially with scalability support. Western Digital can leverage its resources, develop technologies to improve the disk write density curve with ePMR, thereby helping its customers cope with the increasing needs of the digital economy, " notes Ed Burns, Director of Research for IDC Hard Disk Drives.

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= noted Vice President New H3C Group, President Billy Chen's "Computing and Storage Products."|"This architecture is the natural result of Western Digital's use of its resources. We were one of the first to get acquainted with this solution, and the technology OptiNAND causes positive emotions, as it will help us meet our storage capacity needs for several years to come, "-}}

Unlike hybrid drives that use flash to store user data, this architecture is based on a completely different operating principle, which allows you to improve many indicators of storage performance. Thanks to the use of vertically integrated iNAND memory in their HDD drives, optimizing controller algorithms and using on-chip (SoC) systems, Western Digital drives with OptiNAND technology are characterized by increased capacity, as well as higher performance and reliability. These features will help customers meet increasing storage capacity requirements.

Brief description of the technology. Main characteristics:

• Scope: Improved disk operation - more advanced microcode algorithms allow you to use extended metadata that is transferred from the plates to the iNAND area and get more tracks per inch (TPI), which, in turn, increases recording density.
• Performance: Improve response time through deep and proprietary optimization of disk microcode, focusing on reducing the number of updates due to adjacent track interference (adjacent track or ATI) and reducing the need to clear write cache in write caching mode.
• Reliability: Western Digital is built on the principle of vertical integration of supply, design, development, testing and qualification of disks for increasing fault tolerance, and the use of OptiNAND technology in the event of an emergency power off (EPO) allows you to retain 50 times more user data compared to traditional hard drives.

"Thanks to our intellectual property expertise and development teams working on HDD drives and flash technologies, we have the opportunity to constantly help our users modernize their storage infrastructure," says Western Digital's Global Technology and Strategy President Siva Sivaram.

According to Western Digital, a disk architecture with built-in flash memory for metadata storage (OptiNAND technology) will be used for all disks and storage platforms included in the company's portfolio.

Towards the end of 2021, the company will begin to announce industry-specific specialized products from various areas of its portfolio.