4 ms·

Maybe not yet, but eventually? HDD manufacturers do seem to see trouble brewing. Eg, one interesting thing to me is that hard disks are getting more complex. W

Maybe not yet, but eventually? HDD manufacturers do seem to see trouble brewing. Eg, one interesting thing to me is that hard disks are getting more complex. We now have: * Helium * HAMR * SMR * Dual actuators Helium and HAMR improve density, but add cost. SMR improves density but results in drives that need special handling. Dual actuators improve performance, but increase points of failure. Things like HAMR and SMR seem to be a sign that there's not that much more density to squeeze out without taking special measures. One problem is that as drives get larger and larger, RAID sync times keep on growing. Even assuming faster RPM drives and multiple actuators it seems we're getting quite closer to where this becomes a serious problem.

throwaway154 3y ago
Surely they reduce cost. Otherwise they'd not be used. A donkey and cart's cheaper than a haulage truck, but donkeys aren't used much in the haulage business anymore.
- dsr_ 3y ago
  Look at the lifetime cost and the capabilities you're buying.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  > A donkey and cart's cheaper than a haulage truck Not when you measure the cost per unit of cargo delivered.
  - Brian_K_White 3y ago
    That was their point.
dragontamer 3y ago
I don't get your argument. Hard drive technology pretty much always got more complex as time goes on. Do you think bits shrink themselves? 20+ years ago, we had "Get Perpendicular" explaining why perpendicular bits were a good idea. https://archive.org/details/get-perpendicular https://archive.org/details/get-perpendicular All future technologies are more complex than our past techs. I mean, should we say that future SSDs are doomed because they're going for 4-bits per cell and 300+ layers of silicon rather than the single-layer single-bit simple designs from 10 years ago?
- dale_glass 3y ago
  I mean they're not straightforward improvements, they all have some sort of tradeoff. SSDs are getting more complex but at least from my point of view unnoticeably so. Yeah, it has 4 bits per cell and 300 layers, but as an user I don't have to think about it. I went from 240 GB to 2 TB and it was an improvement by all parameters. Speed got faster, size got bigger. No downsides whatsoever. SMR on the other hand is absolutely infuriating when you bump into its limitations. It's not automatically better, it's extra capacity with a tradeoff.
  - dragontamer 3y ago
    TLC and QLC has far worse durability than SLC or MLC. There's tradeoffs everywhere. IMO, I stick with the "last generation", because the new stuff almost always has stability and/or data-loss issues. Even top-end Samsung drives on the newest tech seems to lose data. Or the SanDisk loss-of-data problem on their SSD drives. --------- https://www.theverge.com/22291828/sandisk-extreme-pro-portable-my-passport-failure-continued https://www.theverge.com/22291828/sandisk-extreme-pro-portab... The only reason why TLC became usable was because new load-balancing algorithms would keep track of which bits were being erased (each erasure uses up your drive's limited durability). It would then have a mini-computer analyze which cells were least used (aka: load-balancing) and move your data over to the less used sections of the drive. Furthermore, drives would compress the data to minimize writes (and therefore erasures). Its not exactly a simple technology, and a lot of things have gone wrong in practice. -------- When your software says "Write to SSD-location #10,000", it _DOESN'T_ write there. It enters the load balancing algorithm, it finds a new location that has least been used. It pretends that new location is #10,000. It sets the "old Location-10,000" to the TRIM state, and then the OS runs a garbage collector over your data at some future point to keep this whole scheme working.
    - bitwize 3y ago
      > It would then have a mini-computer analyze which cells were least used (aka: load-balancing) I'm imagining a PDP-11 dedicated to controlling and wear-leveling an array of flash chips, and smiling. The idea is not quite as silly as you might think; there are real, actual PDP-11s still running RTOSes and "embedded" applications like nuclear power plant monitoring/control... some of which will be supported until the 2050s at least.

throwaway154 3y ago

Surely they reduce cost. Otherwise they'd not be used. A donkey and cart's cheaper than a haulage truck, but donkeys aren't used much in the haulage business anymore.

dsr_ 3y ago
Look at the lifetime cost and the capabilities you're buying.
JohnFen 3y ago
> A donkey and cart's cheaper than a haulage truck Not when you measure the cost per unit of cargo delivered.
- Brian_K_White 3y ago
  That was their point.

dragontamer 3y ago

I don't get your argument. Hard drive technology pretty much always got more complex as time goes on. Do you think bits shrink themselves? 20+ years ago, we had "Get Perpendicular" explaining why perpendicular bits were a good idea. https://archive.org/details/get-perpendicular https://archive.org/details/get-perpendicular All future technologies are more complex than our past techs. I mean, should we say that future SSDs are doomed because they're going for 4-bits per cell and 300+ layers of silicon rather than the single-layer single-bit simple designs from 10 years ago?

dale_glass 3y ago
I mean they're not straightforward improvements, they all have some sort of tradeoff. SSDs are getting more complex but at least from my point of view unnoticeably so. Yeah, it has 4 bits per cell and 300 layers, but as an user I don't have to think about it. I went from 240 GB to 2 TB and it was an improvement by all parameters. Speed got faster, size got bigger. No downsides whatsoever. SMR on the other hand is absolutely infuriating when you bump into its limitations. It's not automatically better, it's extra capacity with a tradeoff.
- dragontamer 3y ago
  TLC and QLC has far worse durability than SLC or MLC. There's tradeoffs everywhere. IMO, I stick with the "last generation", because the new stuff almost always has stability and/or data-loss issues. Even top-end Samsung drives on the newest tech seems to lose data. Or the SanDisk loss-of-data problem on their SSD drives. --------- https://www.theverge.com/22291828/sandisk-extreme-pro-portable-my-passport-failure-continued https://www.theverge.com/22291828/sandisk-extreme-pro-portab... The only reason why TLC became usable was because new load-balancing algorithms would keep track of which bits were being erased (each erasure uses up your drive's limited durability). It would then have a mini-computer analyze which cells were least used (aka: load-balancing) and move your data over to the less used sections of the drive. Furthermore, drives would compress the data to minimize writes (and therefore erasures). Its not exactly a simple technology, and a lot of things have gone wrong in practice. -------- When your software says "Write to SSD-location #10,000", it _DOESN'T_ write there. It enters the load balancing algorithm, it finds a new location that has least been used. It pretends that new location is #10,000. It sets the "old Location-10,000" to the TRIM state, and then the OS runs a garbage collector over your data at some future point to keep this whole scheme working.
  - bitwize 3y ago
    > It would then have a mini-computer analyze which cells were least used (aka: load-balancing) I'm imagining a PDP-11 dedicated to controlling and wear-leveling an array of flash chips, and smiling. The idea is not quite as silly as you might think; there are real, actual PDP-11s still running RTOSes and "embedded" applications like nuclear power plant monitoring/control... some of which will be supported until the 2050s at least.