Tag: hard drives

Article 

Western Digital 14TB hard drive sets storage record | CNet

From the horse’s mouth

HGST by Western Digital

Ultrastar HS14 14Tb hard disk

Product Page

Press Release

My Comments

Western Digital had broken the record for data stored on a 3.5” hard disk by offering the HGST by WD UltraStar HS14 hard disk.

This 3.5” hard disk is capable of storing 14Tb of data and has been seen as a significant increase in data-density for disk-based mechanical data storage. It implements HelioSeal construction technology which yields a hermetically-sealed enclosure filled with helium that leads to thinner disks which also permit reduced cost, cooling requirements and power consumption.

At the moment, this hard disk is being pitched at heavy-duty enterprise, cloud and data-center computing applications rather than regular desktop or small-NAS applications. In this use case, I see that these ultra-high-capacity hard disks earn their keep would be localised data-processing applications where non-volatile secondary storage is an important part of the equation.

Such situations would include content-distribution networks such as the Netflix application or edge / fog computing applications where data has to be processed and held locally. Here, such applications that are dependent on relatively-small devices that can be installed close to where the data is created or consumed like telephone exchanges, street cabinets, or telecommunications rooms.

I would expect that this level of data-density will impact other hard disks and devices based on these hard disks. For example, applying it to the 2.5” hard-disk form factor could see these hard disks approaching 8Tb or more yielding highly capacious compact storage devices. Or that this same storage capacity is made available for hard drives that suit regular desktop computers and NAS units.

Some of you who have a traditional “three-piece” desktop computer system where there is a separate box where all the activity takes place, may refer to this box of your computer setup as the “hard disk” even though it is known as a “system unit”. This is because the hard disk, amongst the other key computing subsystems like the CPU processor and the RAM exists in that box.

This infographic shows what the key parts of your computer are and is based on one of the newer small-form-factor designs that are common in the office and home.

What’s inside your computer

WD MyCloud EX2 2-disk NAS – has a 2-disk RAID setup

All network-attached-storage units that have two or more drive bays in them offer different ways to make use of the hard disks installed in these drive bays. These are primarily about creating one logical disk volume out of the many disk drives.

You may also find multiple-disk arrays being implemented in so-called “Direct Attached Storage” devices which connect to your computer as if they are a peripheral or are integrated in the computer. These are typically used for computer setups where read-write performance for secondary storage is considered important like video editing or for computers that work as servers.

WD MyCloud EX4 NAS – can be set up as a 4-disk RAID array

The most common setups are described as “RAID” or “Redundant Array Of Independent Disks”. These setups gang multiple hard disks (or solid-state drives) to improve data throughput, effective disk capacity or system fault-tolerance.

Multi-Drive Disk setups

RAID setups

It is important to remember that a RAID setup that is about fault tolerance doesn’t obviate the need to back up the contents of a NAS. This is something you can do with a USB hard disk connected to the NAS, another NAS on the same network or connected via the Internet or an online storage or backup service.

RAID 0

RAID 0 Data Striping across disks

Here, this creates one logical volume with the data spread across the disks, a method known as “striping”. Each block of data is sequentially stored across each physical disk rather than a disk being filled with data then another disk being subsequently filled with data.

This allows for increased capacity and read / write data throughput, but loses on fault tolerance because the disk array is no good and the data is lost if one of the drives fails.

Volume Capacity: Number of Disks x Size of smallest disk

RAID 1

RAID 1 – Disk Mirroring

This setup creates a logical volume with the data duplicated on each physical drive. a method known as “mirroring”.

The main advantage here is increased fault-tolerance because if a disk dies, you still have access to the the data on the other disk. There is also another advantage of increased read throughput because both physical disks can be read at the same time.

The only limitations here are the volume capacity which is the size of the smallest disk in the array along with the write speed because the disk controller has to write the same data to multiple disks. It is infact a preferred RAID array setup for a 2-bay NAS due to the fault-tolerance.

Volume Capacity= Size of smallest disk in the bunch

RAID 5

RAID 5 Data Striping with a parity block

This setup works between data capacity and fault tolerance in a very interesting way. It is because the RAID 5 setup creates “parity” data. This is used in computing as a fault-tolerance measure because an algorithm can use this data along with the “known-to-be-good” data to reconstitute data lost in transmission.

Here, a RAID 5 array stripes data across the physical disk collection but inserts a block of parity data at regular intervals as part of this “striping” so as to create some form of fault-tolerance. Then the RAID 5 disk controller reconstitutes data from parity and available “known-to-be-good” data if things start to go wrong with a disk.

The advantages in these setups are the disk capacity, the read throughput and the fault tolerance but there is a performance reduction for those systems that do a lot of data writing.

Volume Capacity: (Number of disks – 1) x smallest disk size

RAID 6

RAID 6 Data striping with two-block parity

RAID 6 works in a similar manner to RAID 5 in that it stripes data across multiple physical disks and creates a parity block for fault-tolerance. But a RAID 6 array creates another parity block to increase the amount of fault tolerance in the setup.

Volume capacity: (Number of disks-2) x smallest disk size

RAID 10 (1+0)

RAID 10 A combination of data striping and disk mirroring

A setup that is used with 4-disk RAID arrays is the RAID 10 array also known as the RAID 1+0 array which is a combination of both the RAID 1 setup and the RAID 0 setup.

Here, there are two collections of disks with one collection keeping copies of the data held on the other collection. Each collection has its data “striped” across the disks for capacity and performance.

The core benefit with a RAID 10 setup is that there is increased write throughput which can come in handy with write-intensive setups like databases. This is in addition to the fault tolerance provided by mirroring along with the read performance provided by striping.

Volume Capacity: Combined size of two of the smallest disks

Non-RAID setups

JBOD – Disks as separate volumes

JBOD

This setup, known as “Just a Bunch Of Disks” is simply about each physical disk being treated by the NAS as a separate logical volume. It can be useful if you want to maintain separate data on each disk under a separate volume name.

Spanning

Disk Spanning, sometimes known as JBOD by some manufacturers

The “spanning” setup simply is based on data filling up one disk then filling up another disk in that same volume.

Different options available

Automatic RAID setups

The NETGEAR ReadyNAS on the right can implement X-RAID automatic RAID setup

An increasing number of manufacturers use an “automatic RAID” setup like Synology’s Hybrid RAID or NETGEAR’s X-RAID. These are RAID setups that are optimised to mix different-sized hard disks so that these arrays work to maximise useable capacity, disk performance and fault-tolerance.

Manufacturers pitch these RAID setups for people new to NAS or disk-array management who are thinking about how much redundant storage is needed to balance capacity and fault tolerance. They also encourage the customers to “build out” a RAID array as and when they can afford the extra disks.

Hot-spare disks

Thecus N5810PRO small business NAS is able to implement a hot-spare disk for high RAID availability

Another feature offered mainly with small-business NAS units is the addition of a hot-spare disk. Such RAID arrays will have a separate hard disk that isn’t used unless one of the disks in that array fails.  These setups are preferred for environments where there is emphasis on a multi-disk array that is to be highly available at peak performance.

Hot-swap setups

An increasing number of prosumer and small-business NAS units come with a “hot-swap” functionality where you can swap out the hard disk while the NAS is in operation. This is more so for replacing faulty disks that are degrading a RAID array’s performance and is more relevant with RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 10 and “automatic RAID” setups.

Upsizing a NAS’s RAID array

QNAP 2-disk NAS – capable of setting up a highly-available high-performance RAID1 array

Upsizing a RAID array is something you could be tempted to do, especially as hard-disk prices gradually become cheaper and the time when one hard disk in a RAID array fails may be the time to upsize it.

But this can be difficult. Here, you would need to copy out all of the data to storage with the same volume capacity as your NAS’s current RAID array. Then you would have to simultaneously replace the disks in that array with units of the same but higher capacity before copying back the data. This may be easy to achieve with a 2-bay NAS.

Or you could migrate a 2-disk RAID 1 array in a 4-bay NAS to a RAID 5 array while adding a higher-capacity disk to that array. Here, you get increased capacity on the new disk due to the smaller disks being combined for real data use while space on the larger disk is allocated for parity data. Then you would need to swap out the small disks in that array with the larger disks as a way to gradually increase the volume’s useful size.

The automatic RAID setups make it easier to upsize your NAS as you can afford it and manage the right amount of redundant storage needed for your data.

The best RAID array setup for your needs and your NAS

The RAID array that you set your NAS up with depends on the number of drive bays the device has along with the number of disks you have. But these suggests are based on setups that are cost-effective yet yield high availability . They would also yield high read performance especially for multimedia applications. It is also a good idea to populate your multiple-bay NAS with drives of the same capacity when you are setting a new unit up.

A 2-bay NAS would be best set up as a RAID-1 array in order to implement the mirroring ability for high availability and increased read throughput which is necessary for video files streamed using DLNA.

A 4-bay NAS would be best set up as a RAID-5 array of at least three disks of the same size. There is the ability to make use of the capacity yet use the parity blocks to keep the data available should one of the disks keel over.

Conclusion

Once you understand how the various RAID and other multi-disk arrays work, you can choose the most cost-effective way to have your data stored for capacity, performance and high availability with your NAS.

At the moment, the online video industry is preferring to work on the “stream-only” model for delivering their video content via the Internet. But they could also look at supporting a download model where content is delivered to secondary storage that is local to the viewer with them viewing the content from the secondary storage.

In this context, downloading is where the files representing video content are delivered in a best-case manner rather than as real-time to the show as possible, with the content ending up on the secondary storage. Then, when the viewer wants to view this content, they play it off the secondary storage rather than stream it.

They prefer the “stream-only” approach for a few reasons. One is to control the viewing experience so as to either offer extra features or run advertising before or during the content, with the advertising reflecting the latest campaigns. Another is to avoid the risk of content piracy that could be seen to occur if the content is left on a space that is controlled by the customer. As well, the customer doesn’t need to bear any costs for extra secondary storage to hold the content even though the cost of this storage is becoming significantly cheaper. You can also log in to your service from anywhere you are connected to the Internet to get at the same content.

But there are limitations with the streaming approach. One glaring limitation is that a sub-par Internet or network connection or an oversubscribed video stream can ruin the viewing experience with jitter or latency. As well, viewers who like to implement trick-play functionality, especially to review scenes, may find streaming becoming a problem.

A download-based service could be offered as an adjunct to a streaming-based service for video-on-demand services, especially those that host a lot of drama or related content. These services could work hand-in-glove with a network-attached-storage device or a hard disk directly attached to a smart TV or video peripheral like a network media player.

This could work hand-in-glove with most video-on-demand business models especially if they are subscription-based, “download-to-own”, or rental/pay-per-view models. Here, systems that implement any “playlist” model for video content could support a “download-ahead” setup where content in a playlist that hasn’t been viewed yet is downloaded, ready to view. This would make life very enjoyable for “binge-watchers” who will watch a run of episodes of a favourite TV show.

Typically, the download-based service is based around a hard disk that is physically integrated in the set-top equipment or connected via USB to the same equipment. This class of setup would have us think of a DVR-style set-top box or some hard-disk-based media players. But, if there was a standard way to determine the presence of available storage space on a suitable network-attached-storage device, these devices could also work well with the download-based video service. Examples of this application may include router/NAS units like the Freebox Révolution, or just simply most consumer NAS units.

The idea of downloading video content rather than streaming it when providing a video-on-demand service is something worth considering when it comes to delivering online video so as to assure all users of a proper experience for these services.

Article

TDK breaks the Hard Drive density limit, could go on to develop super-sized storage — Engadget

My Comments

TDK was once known in its earlier years for storage media, especially tapes and, subsequently floppy and optical discs. During that time, when any of us wanted high-quality audio or video recording, we chose this name as one of our preferred brands. Infact one idea they were known for in the 1970s was a cost-effective high-bias magnetic tape formula known as “Super Avilyn” which yielded as good an audio or video recording result as traditional chrome-based high-bias magnetic tape.

Now that we have moved to MP3 players, smartphones and hard-disk-based storage of audio and video content, this company had diversified in to cheaper audio equipment to the open market and reduced its presence in storage media for that market. Here, Hitachi and others have been improving on the data capacity of hard disks over the many years with TDK disappearing in to the background in this field.

But they have not left this storage-medium expertise of theirs behind in this hard-disk-based data-storage era. Here, they raised the data-density bar for hard disks further, thus allowing for 1.5 terabyte per square inch. The article raised possibilities of 15” laptops coming with single 2.5” hard disks greater than 1Tb or desktop computers being equipped with 3.5” hard disks greater than 2Tb. This would also appeal to the current trend for low-profile and “all-in-one” desktops having the same storage as what was acceptable for larger designs.

For the home or small-business network, I would see possibilities like NAS units being in the order of at least 10Tb. This is in conjunction with PVRs and similar home-entertainment equipment able to work with many hours of ultra-high-definition video material especially as the 4K and 8K ultra-high-definition video technologies which yield cinema-quality video come closer.

Personally, I would expect this technology to materialise in the form of hard disks within the next two years once TDK have got it proven in a form for manufacturers to use. It also happens to be coinciding with the South-East-Asian hard-disk factories coming back on stream after the Thailand floods, this making it feasible to see the return of “dime-a-dozen” hard-disk storage.

A typical external hard disk

An accessory worth having on hand for your laptop is an external hard disk. These typically connect to the computer using a USB or eSATA connector and, in the case of smaller-sized USB drives, are powered off the host computer.

Backup tool

One often-promoted use for these hard disks is for them to be a data-backup tool. Here, you could copy all of your work to an external hard disk, either by copying out your user-data folders to the hard disk or using a backup tool supplied by the operating system vendor or a third party.

What you can do is keep this backup hard disk somewhere safe such as that in-room safe in the hotel you are staying in. Then you work your data on your laptop and perform regular backups of that data. If the backup software allows this, you could perform a “disk-image” backup of your programs and data so that if something happens to the hard disk, you can restore this “image” to your new hard disk.

In some cases, you could do a full or “disk-image” backup of your computer’s storage to one of these external hard disks and send the external hard disk to your home or workplace by registered or certified mail or a courier service. Here, you would need to make sure the service has proper insurance cover for the equipment under transit and it may be something that you may have to buy when you send the item onwards.

Data-offload tool

eSATA / USB port on some laptops

Another application would be a “data-offload” disk. Here, you could move surplus user data to the external hard disk before you find that you are running out of disk space on the laptop’s main disk.

If you do need the data, you could just connect the hard disk to your laptop so you can get at that data. Of course, some of you who own a high-capacity iPod may move all of your digital music collection to the iPod and not have it on your computer’s hard disk.

This common application would be increasingly important with Ultrabooks and other small notebooks that don’t have much in the way of capacity on their main secondary-storage. Here, this situation can allow you to have the best of both worlds – a compact computer with a quick-access storage and a large amount of space to hold those photos or music tracks.

Those who play computer games will also benefit from using USB hard disks. Here, it is about offloading the data associated with these games so you can keep your laptop for productivity use and will be important as your games acquire extra abilities like downloadable content. You may even find that you could offload games you aren’t touching so you can focus your computer’s storage resources on the one you are currently playing. Steam and other game-distribution platforms have support for this kind of arrangement including offloading games.

What to choose

Interfaces

USB 3.0 socket (in blue) on laptop

Personally, I would prefer a USB 3.0 or eSATA unit if the computer is equipped with a USB 3.0 or eSATA port. This allows for higher data throughput which would be important if you are moving a lot of data at once. If you are doing small incremental data transfers, you could get by with a USB 2.0 hard disk at the time this article was initially created.

The newer connection that is appearing is the USB Type-C connector. Here, this provides a high-throughput data transfer rate when implemented to USB 3.2 or newer standards as well as being a highly-compact connection form. Here, this connection is being used as the only peripheral connection type for ultraportable laptops but is also appearing on some of these portable hard disks.

Newer USB-C socket on a Dell Inspiron 14 5000 2-in-1 laptop

You will also notice that USB portable hard disks that work to the USB 3.0 or USB 3.1 standards and don’t have a USB Type-C connection will have a USB Type-Micro-B 3.0 “blade-shaped” connection that plugs in to the hard disk unit itself. They will came with a cable that has this connection and the traditional USB Type-A host-connection plug. But you can use them with newer computers that have the USB Type-C port if you purchase a cable with a USB Type-Micro-B 3.o plug on one end and a USB Type-C plug on the other.

Most small USB hard disks run off the host computer’s power rather than a separate power supply. The same doesn’t hold true for eSATA hard disks because the eSATA interface doesn’t pass power from the host computer to the drive. That situation can avoid the need to carry extra power cords or adaptors if you want to use an external hard disk.

For that matter, I have written an article about what is the difference between an external USB hard disk versus a portable USB hard disk. Here, it is about how these devices are powered and their size, but it also encompasses whether the hard-disk mechanism is designed for increased resilience to accidents.

Physical size

The size that would work well for travel would be a unit that is no bigger than a pack of playing cards or, if you were old enough to remember them, an audio cassette. This then means that the external hard disk doesn’t take up much space or add extra weight to your luggage. It also means that your backup disk doesn’t take up much room in the in-room safe and wouldn’t cost much to send by certified post if you had to send it home under separate cover.

Capacity

When you do purchase these hard disks, be prepared to buy as much capacity as you can afford. This is something I stand for when recommending any equipment that uses a hard disk, so you are not always running out of capacity or having to move and delete data off the device.

What is worth knowing

Integrating images with the main digital-image collection

If you are using the external hard disk to offload digital images that you have downloaded to your Ultrabook, you can use your main computer’s image-management program’s “import” method to import the images. Here, you would have to use “Open Autoplay” in Windows to invoke this functionality.

On the other hand, you may just simply copy the image folder on the external hard disk to the main computer’s image folder under a particular folder name of your choice. Here, you may have to rotate images to view them the correct way. This is more so if you haven’t used an image-management program to import your photos from the camera’s memory card to your Ultrabook’s storage.

A possible workflow idea

What you could do to manage images while travelling could be to use iPhoto or Windows Live Photo Gallery to import the pictures from your camera card and smartphone to your “traveller” computer’s main storage.

These tools give you the ability to pre-process your images such as making sure they are the “right way up”, doing basic cropping or panorama creation or simply adjusting exposure. As well you use this image collection to post up select pictures on Flickr, Facebook and similar online sharing or social-networking services.

Then you use the external hard disk to offload images whenever you find you are running tight on space or simply to make a backup copy of those pictures.

When you arrive home, you just simply copy that image collection to your main image folder on your regular computer and / or your network-attached storage.

Conclusion

Once you know about these external hard disks, you would then value them as an compact auxiliary storage unit for the data you create using that laptop while you go travelling.

Updates:

15 December 2020

Added newer information about the USB-C connection and USB 3 Micro-B connection that appear on these USB hard disks.

Also referenced an article about the difference between portable and external hard disks; along with information about offloading games to these hard disks without breaking them.

The current situation

Typically, a printer or “all-in-one” comes with a CD that has a monolithic driver and application set for the device. The files on this disc are also available at the manufacturer’s Website in their latest form and / or ported to different operating systems.

The current problem with this method of printer installation is that it is assumed that every computer has a working optical drive built in to it. The situation here is different in reality because a computer like a netbook or nettop may not have an integrated optical drive and there is a common situation where optical drives are likely to fail. This is more so with the slimline “carriage-load” optical drives that are part and parcel of most laptops that are in the field and are becoming part of the equation with small-footprint desktop computers.

The market might prefer the use of a USB memory key that has all this software, especially due to netbooks and “thin-and-light” notebooks that don’t have optical drives becoming commonly available. But this memory key, like the CD, may end up being lost through the life of the printer simply due to common misplacement. There is even the factor that the files may be wiped by accident as a person intends to “stuff” a memory key with more data to take with them.

What can be done

Use of fixed onboard storage

I would prefer the printer, especially any device that offers network or fax functionality, to use fixed onboard storage. A lot of the “all-in-ones” support local removeable storage in order to permit “there-and-then” printing of digital images held on a camera’s memory card or to support “scan-to-memory” functionality, but the fixed storage could take things further.  The USB host port on a lot of these printers may be able to be used beyond connecting PictBridge-enabled cameras. In most cases, this port may be available for one to plug in a USB memory key to print documents or images held on that memory key.

The fixed onboard storage can extend printer functionality and increase operation efficiency in may different ways.  For example, it could come in handy for queuing documents that are to be printed thus taking the load off the host computers; or providing for enhanced fax functionality like “after-hours” fax transmission (to take advantage of off-peak call costs) or “hold-without-print” fax reception for whenever the machine is out of paper / ink or as a security measure. With the scanner, this could come in handy for “scan-to-email” or “pick-up-from-machine” scanning where you scan the hard copy to on-machine storage and use your computer to visit the on-machine storage when collecting the scanned images . In the case of “there-and-then” photo printing, the fixed storage can come in handy with holding the images that are to be printed so that the user can remove their camera card or PictBridge-connected camera and continue taking more pictures.

Relevance to printer setup

As far as the printer-setup routine goes, a part of this storage could be used for holding driver files for most platforms.

Local USB connection

If the printer is connected directly to the computer via a USB cable, the fixed storage could be presented as a Mass-Storage Device. Here, the storage would appear as another volume of the file system and the operating system would point to that volume whenever it has to load the drivers as part of its “plug-and-play” peripheral installation whenever a printer is connected to a computer running Windows or MacOS X. Linux users could find the necessary binaries and source files when they mount the internal storage to the “*NIX” file-system tree.

This practice is totally similar to how the drivers and supplementary software are stored on one of those USB wireless-broadband modems. Then, if the computer’s operating system doesn’t have native support for wireless broadband, the user loads this software directly from the broadband modem.

Network connection

If the printer is connected to an IP-based network like a home or office network, the fixed storage, especially the driver-files area, would be presented as a CIFS, FTP or HTTP network volume readable to all users and device-initialisation methods like “Point and Print”, UPnP, DPWS and Apple Bonjour to locate the drivers on this storage and load them in to the computers.

Keeping the drivers up to date

The user could keep the drivers up to date by running a “driver-update” program that exists on the printer’s fixed storage if the printer is connected directly to the computer. This program could poll the manufacturer’s Website for newer drivers for particular operating systems and upload the newer drivers to the printer.

On the other hand, the user could set a network-connected printer to poll the manufacturer’s Website at regular intervals for driver updates for the nominated platforms.

Benefit for installers and users

This setup method can reduce the amount of work required to commission a new printer or enable printer access to a computer that has just come on to their site. There is less need to remember where driver CDs or USB memory keys are or the Web download details for the drivers, whether for existing operating systems or for newer platforms.

It can also cut down on the number of helpdesk calls or service visits that are needed whenever someone is setting up a printer for the first time, because they have trouble with balky optical drives (common with a lot of laptops), scratched discs or missing printer-software media.

A wireless hotspot or other facility that provides public Internet access can also benefit from offering a document-printout service to their customers without having to help the customers with adding printer drivers to their computer or make a CD or USB memory key full of driver files available to their customers.

Cost and design impact for manufacturers

The fixed storage could simply be based on a hard disk or flash memory with a very low storage capacity, say up to 160Gb and which is of a small form factor like a microdrive. This can avoid the manufacturer having to vary the printer’s industrial design to suit integrating local storage and the cost to provide the storage becomes very minimal.

This feature offers another point for manufacturers to differentiate the products in their range. An economy model could just have a small amount of memory with just enough room for the drivers and perhaps queuing memory for an average document whereas midrange and high-end units could have increased memory space for all of the functionality that comes with these models.

As I mentioned before, the same feature can provide added value to the printer or “all-in-one” device such as the device taking the load off the host computers or offering a raft of extra functionality. Manufacturers can also save money on preparing and packing optical discs or USB memory keys with their printers and avoid needing to handle support issues concerning these items.

Summary

Once we work towards a method of setting up printers without any need for extra media to come with the printers, we can then see a true “plug-and-play” printing experience for all printer users.