Just when we thought spinning had drives were dead, here comes another one. This one actually has teeth. The 12TB helium-sealed hard drives. This is interesting because the helium drive concept is not new. I had blogged years before about it, but there were technologies that prevented the actual mass production of such a drive. It finally came! With technologies available today in SSD technology and the high capacities that are available, where does this drive fit in the overall market of storage?

Well, the current state of life in general is interesting. Technology is spinning off in so many different directions it is hard to tell. There are also shortages in SSD drives that is driving additional demand for large capacity HHDs. Another driving force is the CapEx to an OpEx cost model that is increasingly gaining popularity. Ultimately this drive has a place.

People still want options

As much as we all love SSDs, people still love their HHDs. The familiarity of it and the cost factor are the main reasons for it, but there is something to be said about writing to magnetic media. Old school folks like me like to know that the data is actually written on the platter. It still makes economic sense to go HHD as long as the capacity can keep up with SSDs. At the end of the day, people also want options. With SANs still supporting HHD and SSD cohabitation (hybrid), this will continue to drive HHD use. With this new Helium-Sealed drive technology, it breathed new life into this industry.

Pressure from the other side (SCM)
SSDs are now mainstream but as we all know from history, there is always a newer technology that is going to take a bite into the storage market. In the compute space, we all know that DRAM (RAM) is the fastest storage. With SSDs living right in between DRAM and HHDs, there is still a big gap in between. SCM (Storage Class Memory) is the next big thing. The intention of this technology is to fill in this gap. This technology is still taking shape, and you will be hearing more about it soon. There will be new players in the storage market that is emerging, so keep an eye out for those players. I will be here soon.

With new industries and new market opportunities brings with it different kinds of requirements. Things like crypto currency mining and HPC vs. IoT and social media brings a different class of computing and storage from both ends. There will be a place for these new nifty drives and Long live the Helium HHD!!!