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Compared with AI computing power represented by GPU, and AI computing power cluster network represented by IB and RoCE, the impact of large models on storage seems to be underestimated, but this does not affect the supply shortage and price of the storage industry at all. rise.
The world’s first mechanical hard drive was born in 1956. The main components of the magnetic head, platter, and spindle are still used today. It can be regarded as an “old antique” in the industry. With the changes in the IT industry, mechanical hard drives have not been eliminated; Keep evolving.
The widespread popularity of PCs promoted the first stage of the development of mechanical hard drives. Since then, mobile storage, mobile applications, and APPs have emerged in large numbers, including cars and mobile phones, which have promoted the second stage of hard drive development. The third stage is related to cloud computing. The characteristics of centralization and massive data storage have become a huge driving force for the growth of the hard disk industry. Now, storage in the AI era is here.
This year, several major storage manufacturers, such as Seagate and Western Digital, have successively announced price increases. Seagate mentioned in a letter to customers that due to artificial intelligence driving demand for large-capacity hard drive products and hard drive manufacturers reducing production, the overall supply of hard drives cannot meet demand, causing prices to soar.
Seagate also mentioned that demand is continuing to recover in multiple parts of its business, while reduced manufacturing capacity is limiting its ability to meet all customer needs and leading to longer lead times. In addition, ongoing global inflationary pressures continue to impact costs.
Industry analysis points out that as storage manufacturers implement production reduction strategies targeting volume pricing, the overall HDD price has increased by 10% to 20% from the third quarter of 2023 to the first quarter of this year, and the supply shortage trend will continue at least until the end of the year. .
Seagate Global Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer Zheng Wancheng said that AI will drive the accelerated generation of data, storage demand will increase by 30%, and storage will become a key component to ensure the trustworthiness and integrity of artificial intelligence systems.
“In my opinion, hard drive storage is by far the only and most efficient mass storage device. Although new technologies are constantly emerging, the cost, scale, sustainability, and overall benefits that hard drive storage devices can bring From a perspective, no other storage solution can compare with hard drive storage,” Zheng Wancheng said.
The storage requirements of enterprise applications can be roughly divided into three levels: high-throughput storage suitable for data extraction and model training, represented by HBM and DRAM; storage suitable for low-latency access and fast inference, with local and Wanluo storage Solid state drive (SSD) is the representative, ultra-large capacity, scalable long-term storage is represented by the mechanical hard disk (HDD).
Zheng Wancheng mentioned that considering factors such as price, performance and capacity, the purchase cost of mechanical hard drives is only 1/6 of solid-state drives, optimizing the total cost of ownership of AI; capital expenditure efficiency is 9 times higher than that of the NAND industry; compared with solid-state drives , the operating power consumption per TB is reduced to 1/4, and the carbon emissions are reduced to 1/10.
Over the past few decades, hard drive technology has been all about increasing capacity. The more storage you can offer at the right cost and performance, the better the solution. Currently, HAMR (heat-assisted magnetic recording) is the mainstream development direction in the industry.
“HAMR is the only technology that can increase areal density. Competitors may lag behind us in HAMR technology and will seek other alternatives to increase capacity, such as adding additional discs. However, adding additional discs will cause an increase in cost. Increases will lead to increased vibration and energy consumption. All in all, HAMR is a recognized development direction in the industry, and everyone is also working hard to improve areal density. Seagate has also laid out and invested in HAMR a long time ago, and is in a leading position in the industry. ” Zheng Wancheng said.
The Chinese market accounts for approximately 30% of Seagate’s total revenue. Four of Seagate’s top ten customers in the world are from China, and two of the top five fastest-growing customers in the world are from China. Zheng Wancheng mentioned that China not only has the largest and most advanced video image application market and diverse data storage ecology, but also customers are faster in adopting and embracing innovative technologies.
In addition, Seagate’s own smart manufacturing factory introduced AI earlier,Seagate TechnologyZhuang Jingfa, senior vice president of global operations, said that AI is divided into predictive artificial intelligence and generative artificial intelligence. The biggest hot topic in the past year was generative artificial intelligence. Seagate began to introduce predictive artificial intelligence into production five years ago. In the past three years, 144 AI solutions have been introduced into the production line, resulting in cost savings of US$180 million. He also emphasized that Seagate is thinking about introducing generative artificial intelligence in production and how to manage risks, which requires comprehensive consideration in terms of compliance, ethics and other aspects.(This article was first published on Titanium Media APP, author | Zhang Shuai, editor | Gai Hongda)
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