Platter density plateau?

[Skirge01]

Is it just me or has the industry seemed to be stuck at 667GB/platter for quite some time now? I'm still waiting for a 7200rpm, 2 platter, 1.5 or 2TB hard drive, so I can begin replacing my 1TB drives. Any rumors?

[mkk]

Drives with 667MB platters haven't been widely available on the market for too long really. Anyway I think for the average market it's more a question of storage space plateau; how much does even the mid level movie enthusiast need? For performance it's all about SSD and personally for storage I don't see me getting another 7200RPM drive again for reasons of noise.

[Skirge01]

Maybe it's all in my head then and they haven't been at 667GB for all that long. The noise issue is precisely why I'm looking at no more than two platters. My current setup has primarily 2 platter, 1TB, 7200rpm Samsung drives. I think I have 5 of these in my server and the rest are 4 platter, 1TB, WD Green drives. The WD's are definitely noisier than the Samsungs, due to vibration. I want to increase capacity (13TB at the moment) and decrease the number of drives, but it feels like I've been waiting for 750GB/platter drives for an eternity. <tongue firmly planted in cheek> Maybe they'll shock me and jump to 1TB/platter.

[Modo]

The available size increases steadily, so I'd say just wait. If you want to add storage with less of a noise increase, get some of the 2.5" drives. The 7200 rpm models should reach 1 TB soon, in case you really can't do with 5400 rpm for performance reasons. Also, you can stick a 2.5" drive in an SQD to get a virtually inaudible solution at the standard 3.5" size.

[dhanson865]

Is it just me or has the industry seemed to be stuck at 667GB/platter for quite some time now? I'm still waiting for a 7200rpm, 2 platter, 1.5 or 2TB hard drive, so I can begin replacing my 1TB drives. Any rumors?

You are definitely rushing it. The majority below is from a post I made in Mar 2009 but I'll add some dates and a little fresh content to make it clear when some of these were released

You can see from the bolded dates that the in sync jumps were spring 2008 (more 2nd quarter 2008) and 1st quarter 2009. If you can give a solid date to the Seagate and WD press releases for actual shipping product not hype on 660GB+ platters we can see were they are on the track but for now I can't even find dates for those.


3.5" Seagate desktop drives
??? Gbits/inch2 for 7200.12 (667GB Platters) (??? 2010?) I haven't found a press release for this.
329 Gbits/inch2 for 7200.12 (500GB Platters) (Jan 2009)
277 Gbits/inch2 for 7200.11 (375GB Platters) (Oct 2008)
228 Gbits/inch2 for 7200.11 (320/334GB Platters) (Apr 2008)
180 Gbits/inch2 for 7200.10 (250GB Platters) (Jun 2007)
109 Gbits/inch2 for 7200.10 (187GB Platters)
109 Gbits/inch2 for 7200.10 (166GB Platters)

3.5" WD desktop drives
520 Gb/in2 for 640GB platters (unknown 201? series (may have been moved up but in 2009 it was slated for 2011)
400 Gb/in2 for 500GB platters (WD20EADS, etc) (Feb 2009)
250 Gb/in2 for 320/334GB platters (WD6400AAKS, WD6401AALS, etc) (Mar 2008)

It took a lot of Google searches to find some of these numbers. Most are from Seagate or WD themselves but they don't make it easy to find in some cases. Often Seagate will put the number in a technical PDF and a press release. WD usually only does it in a press release. Occasionally a retailer or review will have a number where the press release doesn't. Presumably the PR section of the company web site doesn't bother to archive every release or I'm just not thorough enough in my searches.

Because it was easier to find data on the seagate drives I was a little more thorough on that side. It's also true that Seagate jumps density more often or at least lets the public know when they do.

It's probably worth stating that the manufacturers are probably rounding or fudging this numbers to some extent. Notice that the 500GB 3.5" platter from Seagate is stated as 329 Gbits/inch2 but the same type of platter from WD is stated as 400 Gb/in2. That is quite a range for what should be the same density platters. I'm guessing Seagate gives more accurate numbers and WD rounds up but there are other possibilities.

Maybe WD takes a higher density platter and leaves more spare sectors to improve reliability. Its very hard to say without having access to insider data.

[Skirge01]

Wow! Awesome research there. That certainly is eye opening and clearly shows that I am indeed early in my expectations. Maybe next year...

[Skirge01]

Oh, the irony. Now, just release one with 2 platters at 7200rpm.