How HDDs act as storage flash backbone in functionalities

• A tech and industry expert, Ghassan Azzi, has described the importance of flash storage in storage technologies
• He described the ubiquity of flash storage, describing it as an iceberg that is present everywhere
• He disclosed that despite the importance of that storage system, it is not a standalone device as it has a backbone

Legit.ng’s Pascal Oparada has reported on tech, energy, stocks, investment and the economy for over a decade.

In a thought leadership piece, industry expert Ghassan Azzi, Sales Director for Africa at Western Digital, provides a compelling analogy for understanding the role of storage technologies in our data-driven world. 

He compares the vast landscape of data storage to an iceberg. "Flash storage is everywhere you look above the iceberg’s surface," says Azzi, "from our phones to kitchen gadgets.

Ghassan Azzi, Sales Director at Western Digital Credit: Western Digital
Source: Facebook

It powers autonomous vehicles, undersea drones, remote surgery, and other incredible use cases. But flash storage doesn’t always stand alone. Its important partner is hard disk drives (HDDs) that lurk massively beneath the surface."

Azzi highlights that while flash storage often grabs the headlines, HDDs are the industry's unsung heroes, storing vast quantities of data in the cloud. 

This data is generated by new and existing endpoints from industries, connected devices, digital platforms, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and large language model (LLM) innovations, as well as autonomous machines. 

"This relentless creation of data ultimately finds its way to the cloud, which is underpinned by continued advancements in HDDs," Azzi explains.

The flashy surface

Azzi notes that it's easy to see why flash storage gets all the attention. "Flash is fast, small, tough, and can go just about anywhere our imagination takes us — whether it’s in outer space or deep underwater," he says. 

Advancements in NAND flash storage are pushing capacity to incredible ranges, making personal devices, IoT devices, drones, and robots more powerful than ever while keeping form factors manageable. An astonishing amount of data can now be processed on the network's edge, speeding autonomous decision-making and other automated processes out in the field.

"High-performance transports such as NVMe™, NVMe-oF™, and UFS are making it easier to speed up the transfer of data between devices or between a device and the cloud," Azzi adds. "This high-speed connectivity allows devices to talk to each other more fluently, share critical information, and perform carefully orchestrated operations much more efficiently and effectively."

The unseen depths

According to Azzi, HDDs power almost 80% of the cloud, citing an IDC report (Global StorageSphere Forecast, 2023–2027): "HDDs are the silent workhorses of today’s storage environments. They’re optimized for mass storage and give hyper scalers, cloud service providers (CSPs), and enterprises a scalable, efficient, and cost-effective option in the data center to store vast amounts of data."

Innovations in HDD technology continue to drive higher capacity, low power, and performance. "Conventional magnetic recording (CMR) HDDs, for example, are pushing capacity up to 24 terabytes (TB) while shingled magnetic recording (SMR) HDDs are resulting in even greater densities up to 28TB," Azzi says. "Utilizing greater storage density results in reduced power, cooling, and real estate in the data center, helping organizations lower total cost of ownership (TCO) and meet sustainability and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) initiatives."

Azzi emphasizes that higher-capacity HDDs let businesses store the same data in less space while consuming less power. "Even an extra 15% or 20% of capacity in a drive is valuable and helps cloud providers meet the insatiable demand for storage."

A symbiotic relationship: Tiered storage working in harmony

"The ability for storage to enable innovations and use cases such as AI/ML, LLMs, and Internet of Things (IoT) lies in the harmonious interplay between flash and HDDs," Azzi states. "Device manufacturers can use flash to store frequently accessed or performance-critical 'hot' data for fast retrieval, while less frequently accessed 'warm' or 'cold' data can reside on more cost-efficient HDD media."

This tiered approach optimizes capacity and performance while balancing costs in the long term, working well for today’s innovative applications. Azzi concludes, "It’s okay for Flash to get all the attention as long as we remember that HDDs remain the vast foundation of the storage world."

How to maximize asset velocity by sharing flash

Legit.ng earlier reported that we live in a data-driven world, and the sheer volume of data created by consumers, businesses, and machines is exploding. It’s hard to keep up.

Global research shows that the abundance of data generated, copied, and stored will decrease. IDC projects the volume to reach more than 166 zettabytes by 2025—less than two years away. This will tremendously affect data storage.

The first involves where and how to store it. For example, on-prem or in the cloud, what storage tier – hot, warm, or cold data tier – and what type of infrastructure topology? These are complex questions with many different considerations

Source: Legit.ng