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Western Digital MAMR Tech Pushes Future HDDs Beyond 40TB - PC Perspective
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WESTERN DIGITAL MAMR TECH
PUSHES FUTURE HDDS BEYOND 40TB
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Posted by Allyn Malventano | Oct 12, 2017 | Storage | 17 
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Today Western Digital made a rather significant
announcement in the field of HDD technology.
We’ve previously talked about upcoming ways to
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increase the density of HDD storage, with the
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Western Digital MAMR Tech Pushes Future HDDs Beyond 40TB - PC Perspective
seeming vaporware Heat Assisted Magnetic
Recording (HAMR) forever looming on the
horizon, just out of reach.
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WD, like others, have been researching HAMR as
a possible way of increasing platter densities
moving forward. They were even showing off
prototypes of the technology back in 2013, but a
prototype is a far cry from a production ready,
fully reliable product. Seagate had been making
stronger promises of HAMR, but since we are
already 5 years into their 10-year prediction of
60TB HAMR HDDs (followed by further delays),
it's not looking like we will see a production
ready HAMR HDD model any time soon.
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Western Digital MAMR Tech Pushes Future HDDs Beyond 40TB - PC Perspective
Ok, so HAMR is not viable for now, but what can
we do? Seems WD has figured it out, and it's a
technology they have been kicking around their
labs for nearly a decade. Above we see the PMR
limit of ~1.1 Terabits/square inch. SMR pushes
that figure to 1.4, but we are running up against
the so-called 'writeability limit', which is the point
at which the write head / magnetic field is too
small to overcome the paramagnetic threshold
of the smaller magnetic domains of higher
density media. We are used to hearing that the
only way to raise that limit was to heat the media
with a laser while writing (HAMR), but there is a
different / better way – Microwave Assisted
Magnetic Recording, or MAMR for short.
Don't let the 'microwave' part of the term fool
you – we are not microwaving the media with
sufficient energy to actually heat it. Instead, we
are doing something *way* cooler. The slide
above shows how smaller grain size (higher
density) requires a stronger write field to reach
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sufficient energy levels to reliably store a bit of
data. Now check out the next slide:
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Western Digital MAMR Tech Pushes Future HDDs Beyond 40TB - PC Perspective
This is a lot to grasp but allow me to paraphrase
greatly. Imagine a magnet with a north and south
pole. If you came along with a stronger magnet
and attempted to reverse its polarity by directly
opposing the currently stored state, it's generally
difficult to do so. Current HDD tech relies on the
field being strong enough to overcome the
stored polarity, but MAMR employs a Spin
Torque Oscillator, which operates at a high
enough frequency (20-40 GHz) to match the
ferromagnetic resonance of the media. This
causes a precession of the stored field (like a
gyroscope) and tilts it about its vertical axis. This
resonance adds the extra energy (in addition to
the write field) needed to flip the field to the
desired direction. What's amazing about this
whole process is that thanks to the resonance
effects, the STO can increase the effectiveness of
the write field 3-4x while only consuming
~1/100th of the power compared to that needed
to generate the write field. This reduction in the
damping constant of the media is what will
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enable smaller magnetic domains, therefore
higher platter densities in future MAMRequipped HDDs.
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Western Digital MAMR Tech Pushes Future HDDs Beyond 40TB - PC Perspective
One of the best things about this new tech is that
it is just a simple addition to all of other
technologies already in place today. Western
Digital was already making their drive heads with
an advanced 'damascene' process, silently
introduced about three years ago. To
oversimplify the description, damascene is a
process that enables greater physical precision in
the shape of the head, which helps increase
density. What makes this process a bigger deal
now is that it more easily enables integration of
the Spin Torque Oscillator into the head
assembly. Aside from this head-level change and
another pair of leads to provide a very small
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drive current (~1-2mA), every other aspect of the
drive is identical to what we have today. When it
comes to a relatively radical change to how the
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writing can be accomplished at these upcoming
higher densities, doing so without needing to
change any of the other fundamental
technologies of the drive is a good thing. By no
change, I really mean no change – MAMR can be
employed on current helium-filled drives. Even
SMR.
Western Digital also slipped in another
announcement, which is the shift from the older
style 'nested actuator' (introduced with 2TB
HDDs back in 2009), to a newer 'micro-actuator'.
The newer actuator moves the articulation point
much closer to the head compared to the
previous technology, enabling even finer head
tracking, ultimately resulting in increased track
pitch. WD currently sits somewhere around 400
tracks per inch (TPI), but they hope to reach 1
million (!) thanks to this new tracking combined
with MAMR and improved media chemistry.
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Now this doesn't mean we will see a sudden
influx of 40TB HDDs hitting the market next
week. WD still has to scale up production of STOenabled heads, and even after that is complete,
the media technology still needs to catch up to
the maximum capabilities of what MAMR can
achieve (creating smaller magnetic domains on
the disk surface, etc). Still, it's nice to know that
there is a far simpler way to flip those stored bits
around without having to resort to HAMR, which
seems to be perpetually years away from
production. Speaking of which, I'll leave you with
WD's reliability comparison between their own
HAMR and MAMR technologies. Which would you
choose?
Oh yeah, and about that supposed SSD vs. HDD
cost/GB crossover point. It may not be as soon as
we previously thought:
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Western Digital MAMR Tech Pushes Future HDDs Beyond 40TB - PC Perspective
Full press blast appears after the break.
WESTERN DIGITAL UNVEILS NEXT-GENERATION
TECHNOLOGY TO PRESERVE AND ACCESS THE
NEXT DECADE OF BIG DATA
Company Builds on its Leadership of Delivering
Industry’s Highest Capacity Hard Drives with
Demonstration of Breakthrough Innovation on
Microwave-Assisted Magnetic Recording
Technology
SAN JOSE, CA — Oct. 11, 2017 — At its “Innovating
to Fuel the Next Decade of Big Data” event today,
Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ: WDC) announced
a breakthrough innovation for delivering ultrahigh capacity hard disk drives (HDDs) to meet the
future demands of Big Data with proven data
center-level reliability. The event, held at the
company’s headquarters in Silicon Valley,
included a demonstration of the world’s first
microwave-assisted magnetic recording (MAMR)
HDD and presentations from company executives
and the inventor of MAMR technology, Professor
Jimmy Zhu from Carnegie Mellon University. The
company also showcased advancements in micro
actuation and Damascene recording head
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technology. Western Digital expects to begin
shipping ultra-high capacity MAMR HDDs in 2019
for use in data centers that support Big Data
applications across a full range of industries.
“As the volume, velocity, variety, value and
longevity of both Big Data and Fast Data grow, a
new generation of storage technologies are
needed to not only support ever-expanding
capacities, but ultimately help our customers
analyze and garner insights into our increasingly
connected universe of data,” said Mike Cordano,
president and chief operating officer at Western
Digital. “Our ground-breaking advancement in
MAMR technology will enable Western Digital to
address the future of high capacity storage by
redefining the density potential of HDDs and
introduce a new class of highly reliable, ‘ultrahigh capacity’ drives. We have a proven track
record for identifying, investing in and delivering
advanced technologies that create new product
categories and enable the world to realize the
possibilities of data. Five years ago we introduced
our HelioSeal®, helium-filled drive technology.
Since then, we have shipped more than 20 million
helium drives. That type of leadership and
innovation continues today and we aim to
leverage it well into the future.”
MAMR is one of two energy-assisted technologies
that Western Digital has been developing for
years. The company recently innovated a
breakthrough in material and process that
provides the required reliable and predictable
performance, as well as the manufacturability to
accelerate areal density and cost improvements
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to an estimated average of 15 percent per year.
Developments in the other energy-assisted
technology, specifically, heat-assisted magnetic
recording (HAMR), present new material science
and reliability challenges that are not a factor in
MAMR. Only MAMR demonstrates the reliability
and cost profile that meets the demands of data
center operators.
At the heart of the company’s innovation
breakthrough is the “spin torque oscillator” used
to generate a microwave field that increases the
ability to record data at ultra-high density
without sacrificing reliability. Western Digital’s
innovative MAMR technology is expected to offer
over 4 terabits-per-square-inch over time. With
sustained improvements in recording density,
MAMR promises to enable hard drives with 40TB
of capacity and beyond by 2025, and continued
expansion beyond that timeframe.
“Western Digital’s demonstration of MAMR
technology is a significant breakthrough for the
hard disk drive industry,” said John Rydning,
research vice president, Hard Disk Drives, IDC.
“Commercialization of MAMR technology will
pave the way to higher recording densities, and
lower cost per terabyte hard disk drives for
enterprise datacenters, video surveillance
systems, and consumer NAS products.”
Western Digital’s MAMR technology is the latest
innovation to significantly improve areal
densities. It builds upon a number of other
leading innovations from the company. In
addition to HelioSeal helium-filled drive
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technology, MAMR also builds upon the
company’s micro actuation and recording head
manufacturing technologies. Western Digital’s
advanced micro actuation technology for data
center applications enables hard drives to
accurately and reliably position magnetic heads
for writing and reading at ultra-high densities.
The company’s head manufacturing operations
are the only internal supplier to utilize
Damascene processing to manufacture heads
with the precise tolerances and complex
structures required for reliable and cost-effective
recording at ultra-high densities. The Damascene
process also provides the capability to embed the
spin torque oscillator that enables the
manufacturing of MAMR heads. The combination
of these technologies deliver superior total cost of
ownership (TCO) across all sizes of cloud and
enterprise data centers.
The demonstration of Western Digital’s MAMR
technology is the latest achievement in decades
of HDD leadership from the company, including
over 7,000 issued patents in HDD technology, ongoing helium-enabled HDD technology
advancements – as highlighted by the recent
introduction of the world’s first host-managed
shingled magnetic recording (SMR)
technologyenterprise-class 14TB hard drive –
and a long history of world’s firsts in multi-disk
design.

For further information on Western Digital MAMR
technology, go to http://innovation.wdc.com.
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Western Digital MAMR Tech Pushes Future HDDs Beyond 40TB - PC Perspective
For press images and materials,
visit http://bit.ly/2kHsNgf
About Western Digital
Western Digital creates environments for data to
thrive. The company is driving the innovation
needed to help customers capture, preserve,
access and transform an ever-increasing diversity
of data. Everywhere data lives, from advanced
data centers to mobile sensors to personal
devices, our industry-leading solutions deliver the
possibilities of data. Western Digital data-centric
solutions are marketed under the G-Technology,
HGST, SanDisk, Tegile, Upthere and WD brands.
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Western Digital MAMR Tech Pushes Future HDDs Beyond 40TB - PC Perspective
Allyn Malventano
17 COMMENTS
Cyclops on October 12, 2017 at 3:36 am
As impressive and innovative
As impressive and innovative as the spinning rust
industry has been, they’re trying to compete with
speed boats using steam power.
REPLY
Allyn Malventano on October 12, 2017 at 4:06 am
Well, when it comes to
Well, when it comes to storing 'big data'
(mostly sequentially written), MAMR is going
to push the SSD/HDD cost/GB crossover
point out past 2030, so to that I'd say they
are doing a pretty damn good job at
competing.
REPLY
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Shambles on October 12, 2017 at 4:41 am
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Western Digital MAMR Tech Pushes Future HDDs Beyond 40TB - PC Perspective
And with end users abandoning
And with end users abandoning
platter drives we can expect the HDD
manufacturers to cater their products
even less towards us and more
towards data centers.
The cynic in me thinks that the relative
cost of HDD storage will continue to
move at a glacial place as simply being
able to use less space and power/TB
will be enough to keep data centers
interested even if $/TB doesn’t move
much.
REPLY
extide on October 12, 2017 at 5:18 am
As ‘The SSD Guy’ theorizes,
As ‘The SSD Guy’ theorizes, as long as
the unit price of HDD’s at the high end
stay ~about the same, and capacity
keeps going up it will keep pushing
out the crossover point. It’s definitely
going to be a long time.
REPLY
Michael Scrip on October 12, 2017 at 4:14 am
There’s always gonna be a
There’s always gonna be a need for huge
amounts of data storage that doesn’t have to
be a speed boat. Think about your NAS or a
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data center.
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Your boot drive should be as fast as possible.
An MVNe M.2 drive with 3,000MB/s read is
great for that.
But data can be steam powered. 🙂
arc on October 12, 2017 at 4:33 am
REPLY
With the right gear ratios
With the right gear ratios and pressure
systems, steam can go pretty fast.
REPLY
Anonymouse on October 12, 2017 at 5:02 am
As long as there are storage
As long as there are storage needs where
milliseconds don’t matter, hard drives will
remain relevant and useful. Keep in mind
that tape storage is still used, despite hard
drives having massive performance benefits
over it for decades.
Do you want to needlessly spend thousands
of dollars on storage?
REPLY
psuedonymous on October 12, 2017 at 1:04 pm
Don’t underestimate steam, a
Don’t underestimate steam, a nuke boat w/

steam turbine is a potent combination.
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CODLAG & IFEP vessels need to be designed
to /keep up/ with a CVN, not vice versa!
arc on October 12, 2017 at 4:34 am
REPLY
I also need huge storage for
I also need huge storage for my movies, games,
series, those of us with slow internet want to KEEP
the stuff they put effort into downloading. I
sometimes watch stuff again.
REPLY
Kareha on October 12, 2017 at 6:34 am
I think I’ll be dead by the
I think I’ll be dead by the time the cost of SSD’s
approaches the cost of HDD’s 🙁
REPLY
RGB LED fan on October 12, 2017 at 8:07 am
True, because SSDs will never
True, because SSDs will never overtake HDDs
in terms of capacity. The research on the
absolute physical limits of this was done by
IBM and they managed to store one bit of
data in just 12 atoms using magnetic storage.
Meanwhile, a 10nm NAND gate is something

like 70 silicon atoms across, and that’s not
counting how long/tall it is, and silicon is
already running into quantum tunneling
problems at such small sizes. The smallest
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Western Digital MAMR Tech Pushes Future HDDs Beyond 40TB - PC Perspective
proposed node for silicon is 5nm, though
researchers at Berkeley have made a 1nm
gate transistor using carbon nanotubes and
molybdenum disulfide.
If you think of it this way: An SSD cell has to
contain both the data being stored, as well
as the faculties to read and write that stored
bit, while magnetic media only needs to
store the data bit itself, because the head is a
separate structure.
REPLY
Jann5s on October 12, 2017 at 8:37 am
Well, you need some form of
Well, you need some form of read
head and space to spin the disks in on
the magnetic side. Moreover, I think
enterprise ssds are already denser
then hdds. I’m thinking about the
recently proposed ruler designs.s
Intel ruler: 32TB 0.9*3.86*32.535 cm =
0.27 TB/cm3
WD 14TB gold: 2.61*14.7*10.16 cm =
0.036 TB/cm3
REPLY
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Anonymous. on October 12, 2017 at 1:50 pm
Also worth mentioning is that
Also worth mentioning is that as SSD
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cell size decreases, endurance
necessarily decreases as well, but this
is not the case for magnetic storage.
This is a cost advantage for hard
drives that will only grow over time.
Jann5s on October 12, 2017 at 8:24 am
REPLY
Nice article allyn. I was
Nice article allyn. I was worried that a possible hdd
market shrink would evaporate the research
budgets of wd and seagate and as a consequence
we would never see these nice new technologies.
This post gives me some reassurance.
REPLY
djotter on October 12, 2017 at 8:26 pm
Have to wait until 2024 for
Have to wait until 2024 for 10c/GB SSD 🙁
REPLY
Allyn Malventano on October 12, 2017 at 9:39 pm
I pointed that out to Ryan
I pointed that out to Ryan last night. He was
disappointed 🙂
REPLY
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fadirocks on October 13, 2017 at 8:45 pm
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Western Digital MAMR Tech Pushes Future HDDs Beyond 40TB - PC Perspective
with 8K videos, we will need
with 8K videos, we will need more HD space
REPLY
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