Toshiba's persistence and innovation in storage hard drives
On February 28, Toshiba, the world's leading hard drive brand, held the "2018 Toshiba Hard Drive Partner Conference" in Macau with the theme of "Gathering Strengths and Planning for the Future". Core partners from all regions of the country who were invited to attend gathered together to share their growth and gains over the past year.
In January this year, Toshiba took the lead in launching the industry's largest conventional magnetic recording (CMR) HDD: the 16TB MG08 series. Not only is its capacity 33% higher than the mainstream 12TB capacity, it is also compatible with various applications and operating systems, and is suitable for mixed random, sequential read and write, and workloads in cloud and traditional data center environments. Toshiba's partners at the scene said that Toshiba has been committed to continuously improving hard drive design to meet the growing demand for storage devices in cloud-level server and storage infrastructure environments.
Taking the security industry as an example, with the explosive growth of data, higher storage density cloud, hybrid cloud and local rack-scale storage has become the general trend. It is urgent to find storage solutions that reduce the TCO of storage infrastructure designed for applications such as data protection, big data aggregation, content services and digital archiving.
Mr. Masaaki Takanishi, Vice President of Toshiba Electronics (China), said at the meeting that in the face of the current industry demand for intelligence and high definition, Toshiba will continue to develop new technologies (such as SMR and MAMR to increase the capacity of hard drives) in the future to further reduce storage costs. Through the efforts of Toshiba and its partners, we will be able to continuously meet user needs and further enhance the influence of the Toshiba brand.
Mr. Masaki Takanishi, Vice President of Toshiba Electronics (China)
In people's traditional impression, Japanese manufacturing companies are always associated with their obsessive pursuit of technology. In order to improve product performance, they always invest in research and development regardless of cost. In the context of the HDD market being generally pessimistic, Toshiba is still working hard on capacity and performance. It firmly believes that HDD will coexist with SSD for a long time in the future, especially for data centers with high cost and price sensitivity, HDD hard drives will still be the main storage device. This is in sharp contrast to the wavering positioning of other hard drive manufacturers under technological changes.
Toshiba's revenue data from the Chinese market in the past year showed that although global sales declined slightly in 2018 due to the impact of the global economic environment, its growth value in the Chinese market reached 15%. This also allowed Toshiba to see the value of its own strategy. Mr. Masaki Takanishi said that it will continue to move forward in 2019 and strive to achieve a 20% growth target in the Chinese market.
In Mr. Takanishi's opinion, the current equipment investment in the Chinese market focuses on primary investment. When selecting hard disk products, the products with the best cost performance are often of high concern, while the helium hard disk has a high unit price and is not outstanding in cost performance. "In the US market, users often make long-term plans from the perspective of TCO, but in China, such awareness has just started. We will also share the successful experience of American users with Chinese customers, launch corresponding products for different markets, and strengthen our after-sales service in this era of 'speed'," he said.
Innovation: Exploring new technologies
Innovation is not just about artificial intelligence. Closely related to its corporate genes, Toshiba hard disk products have always been committed to pursuing technological leadership. Toshiba believes that in the field of mechanical hard disks, it is more practical to talk about high-speed data applications and hard disk performance than AI.
Whether it is GMA technology to improve the stability of the hard drive, or the industry's first 14TB hard drive with 9 magnetic platters, or CMR / PMR recording technology, helium filling technology, laser packaging and other aspects, Toshiba Storage has its own market-leading technical advantages, which is also the key to Toshiba's foothold in the hard drive market.
Mr. Toshiyuki Totani, General Manager of Hard Disk Technology Department, Toshiba Electronics (China)
Mr. Toshiyuki Totani, General Manager of Hard Drive Technology Department of Toshiba Electronics (China), said that although the current H.265 compression format has reduced the amount of video storage, due to the current high-definition and intelligent technology, the storage capacity required for video will still increase. The biggest advantage of hard drives is that they can further reduce costs. In addition to working with suppliers, Toshiba itself is also developing new technologies, such as shingled magnetic recording (SMR) and microwave-assisted magnetic recording technology (MAMR) to increase the capacity of hard drives and reduce storage costs.
Mr. Toshiyuki Totani introduced that SMR mainly reduces the protection distance between magnetic tracks, especially allowing magnetic tracks to overlap each other, just like the shingles on the roof, which can naturally greatly increase the storage density without reducing the size of the magnetic head. MAMR is an effective solution to the problem that repeated heating and cooling of HAMR reduces the reliability and life of the disk. MAMR generates microwaves through a spin torque oscillator (STO) to change the magnetism, avoiding the problems caused by HAMR heating.
As a new technology that is currently in great demand in the HDD hard drive market, MAMR hard drives will become an important product in 2019. Toshiyuki Totani revealed that Toshiba is currently verifying the application of MAMR. It is believed that in the future, in addition to increasing the capacity of traditional CRM hard drives, new discussions will also be made on SMR solutions to meet new user needs.
Looking back at Toshiba's development history, it is not difficult to find that Japan's first light bulb, first washing machine, first refrigerator, first microwave oven, first vacuum cleaner, etc. were all produced by Toshiba. "Toshiba, Toshiba, the Toshiba of the new era!" This classic advertisement can make many people recall the memories of that era, which is exactly the glory of Toshiba in the past.
In November, Toshiba launched the "Toshiba Next Plan", a five-year development plan for the future. It mainly points out that the newly launched Toshiba will continue to base itself on technological innovation, and provide strong support and impetus for the innovation of world science and technology in many fields such as social infrastructure, electric power, artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, cloud computing, and unmanned driving.
This is a farewell to yesterday and a new beginning towards tomorrow. Lighting up the future with technology is also one of the themes of Toshiba's global advertising campaigns. In the storage hard drive market, Toshiba is also actively making plans. Through its technical strength and the efforts of its partners, combined with the most actual market needs, it has gained recognition from more users.
Toshiba hard drives are rising.
*This article is reproduced from Security Knowledge Network.
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