Comparison of external hard drives. How to choose an external hard drive: which brands and models are the most reliable

When choosing a computer or laptop, you have to pay attention to many parameters. It would seem that it is not difficult to figure out what a video card, processor or memory should be. The difficulty lies in the fact that each of the parameters has its own characteristics. For example, in order to pay attention to its volume, speed or connection interface.

The choice of any device, especially related to a PC, requires a very careful analysis. But what if you have chosen a great laptop, but its only drawback is a small amount of memory? The best manufacturers of external hard drives have taken care of this.

For what?

It is rare when you get a PC that suits absolutely in all aspects. Sooner or later, "pitfalls" appear that you did not notice before. It happens that the video card is outdated, it happens that there is not enough memory. By the way, in this case there is one caveat. The fact is that some users can load the computer with different programs. To meet their storage needs, they need to buy a new hard drive.

But there are times when the user works with a large amount of material. It can be an editor or a photographer who needs to create their own archive. In this case, you can buy an external Reliability rating, we will consider a little later, but now we will learn about the advantages and disadvantages of these devices, as well as the reasons for their appearance.

Why?

The external hard drive came along with the fear of data loss. Many specialists were faced with the fact that they did not have enough flash drives to store information. It is inconvenient to buy them innumerable quantities. Previously, floppy disks and disks came to their place, but now this option is even worse. As a result, an external hard drive appeared when more than 500 gigabytes of memory were needed, and ideally - 1 terabyte.

The reason for the fear of losing information was the spread of viruses, Trojan horses, spyware and other things that could erase all important and necessary materials. External hard drives have become a lifeline in this situation. Their volumes could be large enough to throw off not only important documents, but also your favorite multimedia files.

Reliability and strength

The advantages of such devices are many. It doesn't matter what kind of external hard drive you have - 500 GB or 2 terabytes. It all depends on your preferences. Its main advantage is its large memory reserves. Pleases and his cooperation with the PC. You do not need to look for additional software to be able to connect a hard drive. Depending on the interface of the cable, you connect the wire to the correct connector. On the computer, the device is identified as an external drive. Before you - full access to all information.

By the way, the disk can also be protected from prying eyes. Unlike the integrated hard drive, this one can not only be screwed up, but simply hidden away on the desktop. Also, as mentioned earlier, along with an external hard drive, the user is protected from any threat. For example, you have worked on important documents and need to keep them available. You can copy them to the hard drive, and in the event of a virus attack on your PC, all important information will remain intact.

By the way, there is another advantage. The external hard drive, whose reliability rating we will know very soon, has a very strong case. In general, the device consists of the hard drive itself and its durable box. Depending on the type, your hard drive will be protected to some extent from external influences and wear.

Well, the last significant advantage is the structuring of information. Like a regular hard drive, an external one can also be divided into blocks in which information is stored. It is also easy to recover data from it, and to prevent loss of materials from the internal HDD, they can be easily transferred to an external one.

Flaws

There is also a major drawback, which received an external hard drive of 1 terabyte. The price is sometimes very high. This is due to many reasons: sometimes it is artificially increased, sometimes due to the popularity of the brand. Although all the same, buying a 1 terabyte HDD will cost you less than buying 30 flash drives of 32 GB each.

The more carefully the user treats an external hard drive, the longer it will live. Premature breakdowns are more often associated with external damage, especially during transportation. Somewhere they accidentally knocked, somewhere they dropped - the sectors are damaged and data is lost.

It's the same story with the files that end up on the hard drive. If they are already damaged, after they enter the device's memory, viruses can spread and destroy all data.

Types of external drives

To choose a quality product, you need to study the external hard drive you like well. Volume is not the only parameter by which you can decide on a model. You should pay attention to the types of HDD.

The first type is different in that its size is 3.5 inches. Usually this is bought by owners of desktop PCs. Unlike the second type, it has larger dimensions, so it needs additional food. Nevertheless, this option is considered excellent. Its main feature is the possibility of automatic backup.

The second type is more compact - only 2.5 inches. It disposes to be always at hand. Very strong this external Reliability rating is always topped by devices of this type. This is due to the fact that they have excellent impact resistance. If he accidentally falls out of his pocket, he will not suffer much. Maybe the case will be scratched, but your information will remain safe. Although there are limits to everything: if you hit him well with a hammer, then, most likely, you can say goodbye to him.

The most reliable

Many experts have repeatedly checked the leading manufacturers of hard drives. They found that on this moment The most reliable hard drive remains the device from Hitachi. In addition to the fact that this fact is confirmed by the opinions of users, it was also analyzed a certain amount of models from this company. The results of the test showed that Hitachi can only be damaged if it is handled carelessly. Otherwise, neither a factory defect nor a weak knot was found.

Once upon a time it doesn't have to

It is worth paying attention to other companies that produce external and internal railways. Seagate is now considered the main "loser" in terms of reliability. The developers created the design of the disk in a short time, which affected the quality of the product. The main problem with this company's hard drives is weak nodes. There is also evidence that the series has a fairly large percentage of defects. There are products that have not lived for more than a year.

In general, a common problem that an external hard drive from Western, Samsung, Seagate and others has received is a chip failure. This affects the operation of the computer, it starts to slow down and hang. If you restart the PC at the same time, the disk disappears from the system. It means that its microcode is already destroyed.

There is also a problem with the motor spindle wedge in some batches. Usually such a breakdown occurs in the HDD, which has a large amount of memory. In this case, the design uses a larger number of magnetic plates. They overload the axis of the hard drive, under their weight it bends, and then stops rotating. It doesn't happen by itself. It is enough to accidentally hook the hard drive or drop it once. You can notice such a breakdown by listening to the noise of the HDD. Usually he starts to "buzz" sharply.

Very fragile

The WD 2Tb external hard drive has also let the user down more than once. Due to the large amount of memory, these products have a load of magnetic plates per axis, so they often do not last more than a year. They also have malfunctions in the operation of magnetic heads. This is due to the fact that the disk overheats or receives external damage.

In general, the design of any HDD from this company is very flimsy. The WD Elements external hard drive is shock and pressure sensitive. By the way, if you apply force to the case, the cover moves, and the magnetic heads are at a low angle to the magnetic plates. Such a breakdown will immediately "bury" all your information on the railway. Nevertheless, Western Digital is popular with buyers. These shortcomings are quite rare. Basically, most models are reliable in terms of mechanics and electronics.

500 GB option

Per recent times There are a huge number of external hard drives on the market. They are produced by different companies, and even those firms that are not familiar to anyone now become sales leaders. An external 500 GB hard drive is the simplest and most common option among users. Its main advantage is the price.

In this category, there are two models that are now considered leaders in reviews and sales. For only 3800 rubles you can purchase the ADATA DashDrive Durable HD650. The main highlight of this railway is its structural strength. In addition, the device has an interesting attractive design: bright colors and carbon inserts.

For reliability, this drive received a three-layer rubberized casing, thanks to which it can absorb shocks during use and transportation. The plastic is quite durable and minimizes the appearance of scratches.

This model is based on the famous Toshiba hard drive. Its speed is 5400 rpm. The Winchester turned out to be very compact and light. Information can be exchanged at a maximum speed of 120 Mb/s. There is a status indicator, as well as a USB 2.0 interface.

The second model in the category of inexpensive external hard drives is the Western Digital WDBLNP5000A-EEUE. He has a very cute appearance. Inside is a proprietary hard drive from the manufacturer. Rotation speed - 5400 rpm. 8 megabyte buffer. The data transfer rate is the same as the previous device. The drive works with USB 3.0 interface. There is a status indicator. Unlike the previous model, the device is sold with diagnostic and maintenance software. The price of such a device is 5300 rubles.

Universal drives

Next, we will look at a 1 terabyte external hard drive. Its price is on average 4-6 thousand rubles. Among all, Silicon Power Stream S03 now stands out. The railway has an interesting design. Outwardly, it is very similar to a notebook with rounded sheets and a curved top corner. There is just an indicator of work. You can use the USB 2.0 or USB 3.0 interface to exchange information through this drive.

The body materials are quite durable. It is made of high-quality plastic, the surface is matte, so it is less likely to attract fingerprints and dust. The shell has rubber seals that protect against impact. At the moment, this is the best external drive among terabyte versions for only 4300 rubles.

Among the disks with a memory capacity of 1 terabyte, Toshiba STOR.E SLIM can be distinguished. The design is nothing remarkable. The appearance is classic, having a compact size and a metallic color. The board has an integrated USB 3.0 or 2.0 interfaces that function, displaying the work status in blue and white, respectively. Speed ​​up to 110 Mb/s.

The drive has durable materials that increase its impact resistance. Also, the device can be protected from prying eyes by setting a password and setting it to automatic. The main advantage of this hard drive is its heat resistance and quiet operation. But the lack of hardware encryption is bad news. The price of this device is 4800 rubles.

Giants

One terabyte will not be enough for someone, for such people an external hard drive Toshiba CANVIO ALU 2 TB was created. The case is made of aluminum, there are 4 colors of the device. It has a rough coating, due to which it does not slip out of the hands. The design has a shock sensor, which increases the integrity of stored materials. Transfer speed is about 115 Mb/s. The main advantage of this drive is the build quality. In addition, it works very quietly, does not overheat, and is also available with a backup utility. Its cost is 6600 rubles.

There is another model of the same volume from Western Digital WDBU6Y0020BBK-EESN. It is slightly cheaper than the previous drive. Looks pretty simple too. It has a shock-resistant case and rough high-quality plastic. Works with a speed of 120 Mb / s and a USB 3.0 interface. Its main plus: quiet and low temperature during active work.

Giant

But Seagate Backup Plus Fast Portable Drive is now considered a revolutionary drive. Its volume is already 4 terabytes. Its main task is considered a quick backup. It can also serve as an excellent archive for important files. Its real data transfer rate is now considered uncompromising - 220 Mb / s. This is due to the fact that two hard drives were placed inside at once.

This decision also affected the dimensions of the device: 307 grams is quite a lot for external media. Works with USB 3.0 interface. Can cooperate with two devices at once. This external hard drive also has disadvantages: noticeable heating and a very high price - 25 thousand rubles.

Among the users there were also dissatisfied. Many who encountered this model complained about the brakes at work. Moreover, if you can write information to the device without problems, then it is more difficult to read it. The launch of the recovery proprietary program indicated damaged sectors. As mentioned earlier, Seagate is now the most unreliable. This is especially true for devices with a large amount of memory. Therefore, you can find more than once negative reviews about the Seagate Backup Plus Fast Portable Drive from users.

Results

Now it is difficult to determine which is better to buy an external hard drive. Reliability rating is also not easy. This is due to the fact that the equipment is not always of high quality. Some devices come defective. The median survival of an external disc is about 3-4 years. But not all companies can achieve such indicators. More than five years usually live devices from Hitachi and some younger models of Western Digital.

The demand for external storage media has become particularly evident in recent years. The reason for this was not only the ever-increasing weight of multimedia content, but also the daily growing activity of virus attacks and the risk of data loss.

In a huge variety of HDDs and SSDs, it is difficult to determine which one to choose - the most productive or the cheapest. The purpose of this article is to give an objective idea about all aspects of choosing this device.

Why do you need a hard drive?

A portable hard drive is a portable storage device.

Its main functional features:

1. high capacity. The device allows you to store and transfer huge amounts of information - from hundreds of gigabytes to several terabytes. It can be used as a second hard drive, as an operating system bootloader;
2. mobility. Can be connected to multiple computers via a standard USB interface, transferred from place to place;
3. safety. You can duplicate and store information outside of a PC or laptop and restrict access to it by third parties.

Higher reliability of data storage and the necessary files are always at hand.

Selection Options

Among the criteria for choosing an external USB hard drive, one can note the capacity, bandwidth, warranty period, low power consumption.

1. facilitating work with the disk;
2. convenient copy saving mode;
3. improvement of energy saving;
4. information encryption;
5. synchronization with the system;
6. the ability to restore files, etc.;

• appearance. Pocket options are presented in a wide range. Devices in a bright spectacular case will be appreciated by creative people. Models in a stylish aluminum case will complement the image of a respectable businessman. Stationary hard drives are less diverse, but they can also be selected for any interior;
• guarantee. Depending on the manufacturer from 1 to 5 years.

Format factor: pocket and desktop

The format factor is one of the key indicators of a hard drive.

SSD and HDD hard drives 2.5 inches are the most popular. Their dimensions do not exceed the size of a smartphone - they can easily fit into a pocket or handbag. These devices are characterized by low power consumption, they can work from a standard USB connector on a computer or laptop. Their volume does not exceed 2 TB.

Drives 3.5 inches - stationary options. Compared to pocket models, they weigh more significantly (up to 1.5 kg) and have a maximum capacity of up to 4 TB. They may require separate power to operate. Some manufacturers produce kits of several hard drives. The volume of such a set can reach 20 TB.

Ultra mobile options - 1.8 inch SSD drives.

Type: SSD or HDD?

According to the type of media, hard drives are divided into SSD and HDD.

HDD is an electronic-mechanical device made of aluminum or glass plates coated with a ferrimagnetic layer. During operation, the plates rotate, and the magnetic heads hover above the surface at a height of 10-12 nm and do not touch the surface of the plates.

Solid State Drives are chip-based storage devices.

The write / read speed of an SSD is about 5 times higher than that of an HDD, but its capabilities are limited by low-speed interfaces.

SSDs are absolutely silent, resistant to mechanical damage. Their disadvantages are high price with minimal volumes and a limited number of rewriting cycles. Some enthusiasts have long predicted the victory of solid-state SSDs over HDDs, but the price of such an alternative is too high.

Connection interface

The speed of the portable drive depends on the connection interface.

The most common is USB 2.0 with a transfer rate of 480 Mbps. This is not a high figure.

Today, almost all modern laptops are equipped with a USB 3.0 interface with speeds up to 4.8 Gb / s.

Additionally, you can use:

• FireWire - high-speed interface 400 - 800 Mbps;
• eSATA - a standard with a bandwidth of up to 3 Gb / s;
• Ethernet is an interface that turns an external drive into a network drive.

Ethernet and FireWire only support 3.5" hard drives.

Video: choose an external drive

Which company is better to choose an external drive?

Which company's external media is the best? Tough competition in this market segment has long driven out the weak. Of the "old" manufacturers, Seagate, Western Digital and Toshiba remained.

Seagate Technology is the largest American company founded in 1979. Produces SSD, HDD and hybrid models. She owns the trademarks Barracuda, Cheetah, Savvio, Constellation, Pulsar, DiamondMax, Momentus. Bought out Samsung's hard drive segment.

Seagate hard drives are the fastest.

Western Digital is an American manufacturer of computer electronics.. The only company that provides a service warranty return of a defective product. In 2012 bought division of Hitachi Global Storage Technologies. Hitachi storage media are considered among the most reliable.

Toshiba is a large international concern specializing in various areas of electronic technology.

Although Samsung and Hitachi exist only as brands, their products are widely represented in the market.

Among the younger companies are Transcend Information, ADATA Technology, Silicon Power.

For 500 GB

500 GB pocket drives are the smallest, most reliable and quietest. Conventionally, they can be divided into 2 classes: high-speed devices with a rotation speed of 7200 rpm and economical ones with 5400 rpm. Economic models are almost comparable in price to SSDs of the same volume.

Media from Transcend and Western Digital are reliable and handle shipping well. The devices are made in thin cases, come with software that implements a wide range of security features.

Seagate Slim and Samsung G2 Portable are among the most compact devices to date.

G2 Portable has average performance, but has several original innovations:

• designed using a special USB on-board technology (the USB controller is located directly on the hard disk board);
• comes with software that allows you to encrypt data in real time and set a password to access important information.

Transcend StoreJet 25M3 has the best impact protection, as it is mounted on special suspension suspensions. It also has a fairly good bandwidth - 89 MB / s.

For 1 TB

1 TB is the most popular capacity.

For those who care about the miniaturization of the device, the WD My Passport Ultra is an excellent choice. You will not find a more compact "terabyte" device.

If the safety of information is in the first place for you, then you should opt for the Transcend StoreJet 25M3, which works best with large files and has a super-shockproof case.

The 3.5-inch Transcend StoreJet 35 Ultra combines large capacity, high transmission speed and efficient power consumption. The portable drive from the same StoreJet 35T series has a lower transfer rate, but a very attractive price.

For 2 TB

2TB devices are chosen by those who store large amounts of data.

The WD My Passport Wireless WDBDAF0020BBK-EESN supports WiFi networks and reads external SD cards. The device is made in the form factor of 2.5 inches. It combines all popular technologies, does not depend on the power supply and is very reliable.

Hitachi hard drives, unlike media using Advanced Format technology, allow you to install an OS without partition alignment.

The STBV2000200 is the performance leader in Seagate's drive lineup.

Price overview by manufacturer

Although the price of storage media is falling, portable hard drives 1 TB, as before, are the leaders in sales.

500 GB
1 TB
2 TB
Seagate Expansion Portable
From 2935 rub.
from 3 550 rub.
from 4 800 rub.
Western Digital Elements Portable
From 2 999 rub.
From 3 799 rubles.
From 6 999 rubles.
Toshiba Stor.E Plus USB 3.0
from 2 860 rub.
from 3 820 rub.
from 5 890 rub.
Samsung HX
From 3 440 rub.
From 4 169 rub.
From 6500 rub.
Hitachi Touro USB 3.0
From 3 880 rub.
From 4 070 rub.
From 4 420 rub.

With the advent of the third version of the USB interface, external media can provide a significant increase in data exchange speed.

When choosing a portable hard drive, you need to decide on its tasks. If you need it at home to store media files, it is better to choose roomy, but not the fastest models. If you plan to use it for work, compact shockproof devices will do. In any case, it is desirable that the device be compatible with modern interfaces.

>

There is a rule - the higher the skill of using a PC, the more it needs a hard drive in terms of volume. Various collections of movies, games, pictures and home videos take up a lot of space in the PC memory, so users try to increase its capacity as much as possible. However, many people do not know what an ideal hard drive should be, which would have a lot of space, and be suitable in configuration, and work quickly. That is why further data will be given on what parameters it is worth choosing a drive, which one is more reliable and how to choose a device “for yourself”.

Hard drive selection rules

It is worth immediately warning that "hard drives" (as hard drives are sometimes called) are different, and their choice is fraught with some difficulties. First of all, you need to rely on the following basic parameters of the hard drive (hard drive):

1. Volume. Figuratively speaking, how much data the hard drive can contain before the “hard drive full” warning lights up in front of you depends on the volume. Currently, you can buy hard drives with a capacity of 1TB, which is enough for any collection (within reasonable limits) of the most "heavy" games or films.
2. Manufacturing firm. At present, several large firms share the title of “the best railway manufacturer”, however, there is still no clear leader. From what firms create a hard drive, its reliability, performance and a good dozen other parameters directly depend.
3. Cache sizes. The cache memory sets the data processing speed of the device, simply put, the better this indicator is, the faster the computer will boot, the data will be loaded more quickly, and some queries will be executed.
4. Connector type. It depends on the connector whether the “hard” is suitable for your computer or laptop. Also, this parameter affects the quality of the device bandwidth.
5. Spindle speed. This indicator also affects the speed of data processing, and accordingly, a faster hard drive will record information faster.

Needless to say, the best hard drives will have all the maximum characteristics, and, accordingly, their purchase will cost a pretty penny. However, combining the performance of the device with your actual needs will allow you to buy a good and inexpensive (comparatively) option that will ideally cover the user's needs. QwertyShop experts described the information on selecting a hard drive http://qwertyshop.com.ua/zhestkie-disk as clearly and usefully as possible so that everyone chooses the option correctly and to their taste.

With the development of computer technology, all devices from this category began to rapidly decrease in size, gradually “growing” to pocket options. The same situation happened with hard drives, as a result, external drives, which are distinguished by ease of use and miniature size. The price, of course, has also gone up. However, it is not at all necessary to buy such device options, it all depends on the ultimate goal of the “upgrade”:

1. Increasing the amount of memory. If the user's goal is simply to increase the available memory, then there is no need to spend money on external device options. Simply select the appropriate hard disk format for your computer configuration, and then simply connect it as a secondary storage platform.
2. The main "hard drive" for the computer. In this option, you also do not need to spend money on mobile types hard drives, and purchase an internal hard drive with good write speed and volume.
3. Mobile data storage. If the user needs a bulky drive that is easy to carry and use, then you should pay attention to an external hard drive. As a rule, such devices have a USB connector, which allows you to connect them to any PC without opening the system unit and “digging” in the wires. In addition, external hard drives can be connected to other equipment - video players, laptops, TVs, and then read data from them.

As for internal devices, it is worth choosing them according to the following parameters.

Hard disk capacity

If you wish, you can purchase devices with different sizes, starting from 250 GB and ending with "terabytes", but practice shows that too large amounts of memory are unnecessary for most users. With the spread of the Internet, all data is stored not on the hard drive, but on the Internet, with the exception of games and programs. If the user considers himself to be among the “average”, then the HDD volume of 500 GB is enough for him. Larger devices require more resources for manufacturers, so they are much more expensive. 1TB is worth buying only for those people who like to collect collections of movies, pictures and other data, and such hard drives are also needed for games.

Cache

In fact, the disk cache plays the role of a working space where data of primary importance is loaded. The higher the setting, the faster tasks will run on the computer. A standard hard drive has clipboard volumes (another name for this section memory) from 8 to 32 MB. This is quite enough for the average user who does not do programming, does not like powerful and productive games, but simply surfs the Internet and watches videos. The most productive HDD will be a device with an indicator of 64 MB.

Spindle speed

The hard drive itself looks like a big disk spinning while it's running. The spindle drives it, and the head, which has direct contact with the disk, is responsible for reading and writing data. The faster the spindle rotates, the sooner the hard drive performs its task - information processing. The average hard drive has a rotation speed of 5400 rpm, more expensive and productive models have a frequency of 5900 or 7200 units. Again, if the user wants a drive "faster", then it is worth looking at a HDD with a speed of 10,000 units - one of the most functional options for today.

Important information: you should also not forget about new types of devices that are gradually taking over the market - SSD drives. This option differs from the standard by the type of device - SSD drives work on solid media. No disks, no spindles, just storage chips. Such hard drives have a much faster speed, they do not make noise (more on that later), but the cost and reliability of these HDDs is much less. The cost is understandable, but the reliability needs to be dealt with. The thing is that it is impossible to recover data from an SSD - if the voltage jumps to the upper bar, then a similar version of the technique “burns out tightly”.

Interface

With the development of computer technology, hard drives have changed several times the connector through which it connects to the PC. The modern version has a SATA connector (for external - USB), it is used in almost all models of computers and drives. However, another interface, the IDE, has not yet completely gone out of use. The SATA version has much more bandwidth, so such a hard drive will process data faster, but if the user has an old PC, he should be careful - these two interfaces are incompatible.

Manufacturer

As for the manufacturer of this equipment, then the opinions of experts diverge greatly. Most of them believe that Western Digital and Hitachi are the leading firms involved in the development of railways. It is these companies that create the most reliable devices - their temperature is always at the level, breakdowns occur infrequently, and functionality is at its best. Some analysts oppose WD (Western Digital) to Seagate. The most unreliable, but popular HDDs are Samsung drives (editor's opinion).

The claims of unreliability of Samsung drives are made based on:
1. the number of warranty returns in the QwertyShop retail chain;
2. analysis of reviews in the Yandex.Market service;
3. Personal editorial experience with short term disk services of this manufacturer.

Industry leaders, Western Digital, have special color codes for the reliability and quality of devices.

Noise level

Some users are annoyed by the noise that the hard drive makes during operation. It can crackle, buzz, rattle, and all this cacophony begins with the power supply to the computer, and ends with its shutdown. It is believed that Western Digital devices emit the least noise during operation, but this is a subjective opinion of the company's fans, so it is a stretch to take this into account. There are no other options for choosing a disk, in terms of the level of noise it emits, so you have to hope for luck.

If the hard disk works in "difficult" conditions for it, then it will quickly fail. To delay this moment as far as possible, it is worth considering the following expert advice.

1. Use UPS. A high-quality "uninterruptible" will protect the HDD from power surges - the main killer of technical equipment.
2. Apply control programs. There are a number of programs that regularly scan the state of the hard drive - temperature, spindle speed. If you look into them from time to time, you can catch the moment when the disk began to “hack” and give it in time for repair.
3. Provide cooling. The HDD generates a lot of heat during operation, sometimes so much that the regular PC cooling system cannot cope with the load. If this situation is observed by the user, it is worth adding a couple of fans to the system unit.
4. Choose the right power supply. If the user has an uneven power supply installed, he can apply high voltage to the hard drive, which is guaranteed to “kill” the device.

Hard drives are the most predictable of all computer components. They are slowly growing in volume, and in our annual final review we report on what indicators the products of a particular company have achieved. However, 2016 has been a surprisingly active year for the magnetic storage industry. As you know, sales of hard drives are steadily declining and have reached their goal in the summer. The reasons for this are the decline in demand for ready-made computers as such and the growing popularity of SSDs. Manufacturers responded to the challenge by focusing their efforts on the class of HDD that is most in demand now - large-volume drives, primarily server drives.

The latest innovation that has had a big impact on the characteristics of enterprise HDDs is helium. For a long time since the advent of this technology in commercial devices, it has remained the prerogative of drives from one company - HGST. But over the past year, the situation has changed. Seagate released its first 10TB sealed server model, and then helium expanded to customer offerings.

The new HDD volume record is 12 TB based on perpendicular magnetic recording, and the next frontier will be 14 TB using SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording). In addition, Seagate, as part of the reorganization of its consumer line, introduced 2.5-inch drives up to 5 TB in 15 mm cases (and this is also SMR). Let's talk in more detail about the changes that have taken place in each of the categories of hard drives.

⇡ Server HDDs: nearline flourishes, mission-critical continues to evolve

3.5-inch nearline (near online) hard drives, designed to store large amounts of data with moderate access speed requirements, remain the only HDD class that causes stable demand in the market. Thanks to the development of cloud services and the growth of user data, they will be in demand for many years to come and will be the last to fall under the onslaught of SSDs. Data density and power consumption per server rack are the defining parameters of a data center drive, and sealed helium-filled drives are unrivaled here.

HGST has broken another capacity record with the release of the 12TB Ultrastar He12 series helium HDD. With 1.7 TB usable platters and a 7200 rpm spindle speed, it also achieved an impressive 255 MB/s sequential access for a magnetic drive.

However, SMR technology has once again come to the rescue in order to increase HDD capacity beyond the limits set by Perpendicular Magnetic Recording (PMR) technology in its modern form. In the near future, HGST will begin selling the Ultrastar He14 series with tiled recordings up to 14TB. It is easy to see that the gap in capacity between helium drives and HDDs in a standard ventilated case is greater than ever: the latter have not even crossed the 8 TB mark yet.

For Western Digital, the ongoing integration of HGST's management and manufacturing structures into the combined entity following the historic deal has allowed the company to more clearly define which segment of the HDD market each brand serves. Since WD's products are mostly aimed at the individual consumer, its server assortment has been reduced, sending such names of nearline drives as WD Se, WD Ae, WD Re + to retirement, and WD Xe fell victim to the mission-critital category. The main Re series remained in service and includes disks with a capacity of no more than 6 TB. At the same time, WD released its own helium HDD for data centers, built on the developments of HGST, under the WD Gold brand - first in the amount of 8, and then 10 TB.

Seagate, which has grown faster than its competitors in recent years but has neglected helium, has embraced the technology. First came the 10TB helium model Enterprise 3.5 HDD (1.43TB usable platters), which we found a number of design advantages over the competing HGST sealed platform this summer. The company then built a range of consumer desktop and NAS devices based on it, which will be discussed below, and a new 12TB enterprise model has been sent to select Seagate partners for testing and will hit the mass market in 2017.

The most capacious drive with SMR in Seagate's arsenal remains the 8TB Archive HDD. Given that standard 3.5-inch drives, even without helium, have already reached this volume, this direction does not yet seem to be a priority for Seagate, although the company promises to expand the use of SMR in the future and has begun to implement it in client devices.

High-speed SFF (2.5-inch) hard drives with a spindle speed of 15K rpm are gradually becoming a thing of the past, as SSDs can offer incomparably higher performance for mission-critical services. At the same time, 10-thousandth drives will be in demand for some time as an intermediate option between SSDs and nearline drives.

Nevertheless, there is still a significant demand for drives with 15K rpm, and Seagate introduced the updated, sixth version of the Enterprise Performance 15K HDD line. Thanks to the increased write density, the drive has a capacity one and a half times larger than analogues (900 GB) and the highest sequential read / write speed among hard drives - 315 MB / s. In addition, select Enterprise Performance 15K HDD v6 configurations include dual cache with 256MB DRAM and 16GB NAND Flash. The latter is used both for duplicating frequently read information and for speeding up writing. The Enterprise Performance 15K HDD v6's random block write throughput is up to 100% faster, according to Seagate, compared to previous generation drives (also equipped with Flash memory).

For 2017, Seagate has planned an upgrade to the Enterprise Performance 10K HDD series, which has now gone through eight iterations. But Western Digital does not share its competitor's enthusiasm for mission-critical drives. The company has further plans for the development of this direction, and the WD brand, as we have already noted, completely left this market when the combined company closed the WD Xe line. Toshiba's 10k/15k rpm drive portfolio has remained unchanged since late 2015, and we don't know if new models will be released.

⇡ HDDdesktop andNAS:growth in volumes and the advent of helium

This year is the first time we've seen sealed helium-filled cases in customer drives. WD, using the mechanics of the HGST Ultrastar He8, has released several new products for network storage under the WD Red, Red Pro and Purple brands. The drives have seven 1.42 TB platters with a total capacity of 8 TB. At the same time, only Red Pro retained the 7200 rpm spindle speed characteristic of the HGST He8, while in others the inserts rotate at 5400 rpm.

The desktop series WD Blue and WD Black, as well as drives for Purple NV video surveillance systems, remained at around 6 TB.

Seagate's customer portfolio, on the other hand, has been completely redesigned. All novelties of 2016 and previous proposals remaining in service have been reorganized under four trademarks. Desktop drives are now sold under the familiar name BarraCuda (BarraCuda Pro), which was once inextricably associated with Seagate drives, but for a few years gave way to the more formal name Desktop HDD and served to distinguish between different series of devices in documents. In addition to BarraCuda, FireCuda brands are presented - drives with a Flash memory buffer, IronWolf (IronWolf Pro) - for NAS and SkyHawk - for video surveillance systems.

The backbone of the BarraCuda, IronWolf and SkyHawk lines formed the models introduced in previous years from the Desktop HDD, NAS HDD and Surveillance HDD series, respectively, but Seagate added to them 8 TB configurations in a ventilated case (six 1.33 TB platters) that use mechanics , previously tested in Seagate Enterprise Capacity 3.5 HDD and Enterprise NAS HDD drives. The pinnacle of development was 10-terabyte helium models (1.43 TB per plate). The BarraCuda series is characterized by a spindle speed of 7200 rpm, the rest - 5900 rpm.

But FireCuda drives are the only ones among all the new Seagate products in a 3.5-inch form factor that have decreased in volume. These are completely new hybrid HDDs introduced to replace the Seagate Desktop SSHD line. Like its predecessors, the drives are equipped with an 8 GB Flash memory chip, only the maximum drive capacity has been reduced from 4 to 2 TB (two 1 TB platters rotating at 7200 rpm).

HGST, banned by antitrust regulators from OEM customer HDDs after its merger with Western Digital, still sells desktop and NAS hard drives as boxed upgrade kits. The most capacious model among them is the 8TB HGST Deskstar NAS, which has a 7200rpm spindle speed and we assume six platters with a usable capacity of 1.33TB. The HGST Deskstar line, on the contrary, has not been updated for a long time and can only offer a 4-terabyte model based on five 800 GB (7200 rpm) platters.

Toshiba client magnetic drives are still limited to 6 TB (7200 rpm).

⇡ 2.5"HDD with SATA interface: SMR and capacity up to 5 TB

750 GB per platter within the framework of traditional PMR technology remains the limit for 2.5-inch HDDs with a spindle speed of 5400-7200 rpm, and only Toshiba uses such platters in the MQ03ABB line. Other products from all manufacturers continue to use 500 GB platters.

Seagate has previously attempted to overcome this limitation with tiled recording, which has increased the platter capacity of the Mobile HDD series to 1TB and the disk capacity to 2TB. However, the manufacturer did not stop there and released under the brand name BarraCuda new series hard drives with SMR.

In addition to drives in 7 mm cases, it includes models with a height of 15 mm, reaching a volume of 5 TB. Max Speed sequential read/write is 130/140 MB/s for thick and thin drives, respectively, at a spindle speed of 5400 rpm (compare with the 145-169 MB/s figures available for the company's mobile HDD with PRM platters).

Seagate uses a few tricks to reduce the slowdown in sector overwriting that is inherent in SMR. The areas of overlapping tracks on the plate are organized into stripes. In addition, the plate has an area formatted using standard PMR technology. Finally, the BarraCuda is equipped with a large DRAM buffer (128MB) and 8GB of NAND Flash. Under load, the controller logic tends to write blocks to the solid-state cache or PMR area in order to place information on the SMR tracks in the free time.

FireCuda hybrid hard drives in the 2.5-inch form factor, unlike their desktop counterparts, are also based on SMR technology and are identical in their main characteristics to BarraCuda models in 7 mm cases, with the exception of slightly higher platters (although the difference is negligible and not reflected in the usable capacity) recording density. The difference from BarraCuda is that the solid-state cache is used here to speed up not only write operations, but also reads. Like Seagate's previous offering in this category, the Seagate Laptop SSHD, the new product determines the access pattern to the most requested data and copies it to Flash memory.

By the way, Seagate no longer has 5 mm high Laptop Ultrathin HDDs in its arsenal. Similar offers remained only with Western Digital in the WD Blue line.

⇡ Plans for the near future

Helium made it possible to install one more platter into HDD cases than before, and to increase the accuracy of head positioning on a track. On the other hand, "tiled" formatting allows more economical use of the wafer area due to the mutual overlap of tracks. However, these methods only bring the industry closer to the fundamental limitations of perpendicular magnetic recording, and the next capacity push will bring bolder technological solutions that are likely to be used in combination with both helium and SMR.

There is a so-called. superparamagnetic limit, which determines minimum size a single "grain" of several hundred that make up a domain that stores one bit of information. For a sufficiently small grain, the difference in the energy of the “zero” and “one” states is already comparable to the energy of temperature fluctuations, which entails an increased risk of charge loss.

The most promising solution to this problem is thermal magnetic recording - HAMR (Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording). As part of this technology, instead of cobalt alloys (as it is now), other materials will be used in HDD wafers (for example, an alloy of iron and platinum or gold-based alloys), which have a higher coercive force - tension magnetic field required for demagnetization. And to temporarily make the substrate more susceptible to a charge change, it needs to be heated by a laser or microwave source as it passes through the recording head.

The theoretical density limit for HAMR is 50 Tbps, which translates to 80 TB per 3.5-inch hard drive platter. HDD manufacturers have been conducting research in this area for many years, and in 2017 HAMR technology will bear the first fruits. The company plans to start pilot deliveries of new generation hard drives with twice the recording density compared to existing devices, and in another year, if everything goes well, they will go to the mass market. Of course, for HAMR to find application in client HDDs, additional time will be required.

Another technology, TDMR (Two-Dimensional Magnetic Recording), is aimed not so much at increasing the recording density as such (although it will allow it to be done by 5-10% using standard PMR), but at making more reliable reading of information from plates when dense markings, and this is especially important for SMR and HAMR. With a sufficiently small track width, the read head collects interference from neighboring tracks. Engineers propose to deal with this by using an array of heads that process one or more tracks at the same time. The first such devices will be the ninth series of Seagate Enterprise Performance 10K HDDs, scheduled for release in 2017.

Other hard drive manufacturers are also showing interest in HAMR and TDMR technologies, but we don't know anything about the specific plans of the joint venture between HGST and WD, on the one hand, and Toshiba, on the other.