Seagate demos hard disk drive with an NVMe interface. Yup, one with spinning platters
- Reference: 1637136244
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/11/17/seagate_nvme_drive/
- Source link:
Well, one [1]purported reason is speed. While Seagate has been [2]promising multi-actuator hard disks for about four years now, [3]you still can't buy them.
The idea is that by having two (or more) separate arms scuttling independently to and fro across the media, hard disks can run fast enough that current SATA interfaces will prove to be a bottleneck. That's 6Gb/s for SATA revision 3, or 600MB/s in reality, while NVMe maxes out at 20Gb/s.
[4]Ch-ch-ch-Chia! HDD sales soar to record levels as latest crypto craze sweeps Europe
[5]After quietly switching to slower NAND in an NVMe SSD, Western Digital promises to be a bit louder next time
[6]Dell joins the 'fast object storage revolution'
We suspect the main reason is money, but there are two aspects to that. It's not that NVMe is cheaper per se . Firstly, although you can buy commodity 4TB SSDs now, a cheap one still costs around £300 and they readily go to twice that much. That kind of wonga will buy you 18TB of spinning disk. In other words, comparing price per unit storage, spinning rust is still under a quarter of the price of flash media.
The second factor is that shipping mechanical disks with an NVMe interface will make it possible for vendors to ship servers with just that interface from now on, simplifying the design – which means reducing the costs. All in all, NVMe HDDs with multiple actuators therefore offer lower TCO, according to Seagate.
[7]
It seems these devices are due to ship to select customers in 2022, it seems.
[8]
There is still room for significant shifts in the storage space. Intel's 3D Xpoint persistent-memory technology has [9]immense promise , even if currently it's [10]struggling in the market. This grade of non-volatile memory can be used literally as memory – it can be fitted into a server's DIMM slots, rendering off-board interfaces such as NVMe obsolete. But there will still be a need for large-capacity slower storage, which for the foreseeable means hard disks.
Having large amounts of non-volatile main memory pulls the rug from under a lot of current axioms of OS design, and research has [11]barely begun – even before vendors [12]got cold feet . But it will come
[13]PDF
. Watch this space. ®Get our [14]Tech Resources
[1] https://blog.seagate.com/enterprises/seagate-unveils-worlds-first-native-nvme-hdd-demo-at-ocp/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2017/12/19/seagate_disk_drive_multi_actuator/
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/04/seagate_mach_2_lproduction_costs/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2021/08/05/chia_hdd_sales_context/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2021/08/27/western_digital_components/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2020/11/20/dell_ecs_exf900_all_flash_object_storage/
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/storage&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YZTg1@M7rNNQkIyafW918gAAAMY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/storage&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YZTg1@M7rNNQkIyafW918gAAAMY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2019/03/25/optane_benchmarks/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/17/micron_pulls_the_plug_on/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2016/11/24/hpes_machinations_to_rewrite_server_design_laws/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2016/11/29/hp_labs_delivered_machine_proof_of_concept_prototype_but_machine_product_is_no_more/
[13] https://www.usenix.org/system/files/atc20-paper221-slides-alvaro.pdf
[14] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Core store memory is what it is, and I expect there's a lot of software ideas from back then that still apply. Though Intel's thing probably isn't nuclear hardened like core store was.
There was quite a lot of thought given to the idea of non volatile main memory when HP's memristor was being heavily researched 10 years ago. That promised to be bigger than HDD, no wear life issues, and faster than SDRAM. So it was a natural replacement for everything. Last I heard it was all ready to go, just waiting for Flash to run out of steam.
One thing that would be very cool is instant on. You'd not shut down a PC, you'd simply turn it off. Provided that CPU caches could be flushed as the last few electrons trickled out of the PSU's capacitors, the PC would be as-was when power was restored. On the other hand a full power on reset could take ages whilst Ram is zeroed...
Encrypted main memory probably becomes important too, bit like what AMD CPUs can now do.
"The clue is right there in the name: NVM, Non-Volatile Memory. So the first question is... why?"
Well, in old-skool definitions, magnetic storage is a form of non-volatile memory.
"Intel's 3D Xpoint persistent-memory technology has immense promise, even if currently it's struggling in the market. This grade of non-volatile memory can be used literally as memory – it can be fitted into a server's DIMM slots, rendering off-board interfaces such as NVMe obsolete."
Ye Ghods, they've invented the core store!