Solid-state drives (SSDs) could push traditional hard disk drives (HDDs) to the brink of extinction in the data center as early as 2025, Huawei predicts.
Speaking to TechRadar Pro in Barcelona ahead of MWC 2022, the company's vice president of data storage, Fupeng Zhang, explained that the lower prices and higher performance of flash storage are driving hard drives out of the market.
Zhang says the process will be gradual, but predicts that SSDs will account for up to 80% of non-archival data center storage by 2025, up from 30% today.
The all-flash data center
As Zhang explains, there are three main storage attributes that enterprises and cloud providers strive to optimize: capacity, reliability, and performance.
The combination of storage hardware required depends entirely on the specific use case. In some cases, capacity and reliability may be the most important factor (eg file storage). But in other scenarios, performance might be the main concern.
While mechanical hard drives deliver in terms of capacity, they lag significantly behind flash storage in terms of performance, which is crucial to enabling the kinds of edge use cases that will also take advantage of technologies like 5G and AI. “Without proper performance, capacity means nothing,” Zhang noted.
As such, Huawei believes that data centers will gradually migrate to an all-flash model, especially as the cost of flash storage declines. The company's current focus is to help businesses manage this transition in a way that does not disrupt operations.
"The all-flash data center is a vision of the future," Zhang said. "We think we need to build systems with a purely Flash mindset, but with backwards compatibility."
"By 2025, the cheapest flash storage could be 2,5 times more expensive than the cheapest hard drives, but it could also support 2,5 times the compression, so the cost would even out."
Even in the context of backup storage, Zhang believes the hard drive's days are numbered. Once the transition to the all-flash data center is complete, the need to quickly restore data after a cyber attack or data loss incident will also require a move to flash backup.
data overload
As the volume of data produced by Internet activity, digital devices, and IoT sensors continues to grow at a rapid rate, businesses are running out of time to solve a critical problem: where to put it all.
According to a recent IDC report, the amount of data created over the next five years will be more than double the amount generated since digital storage was used.
Although only a small percentage of the 64,2 ZB (68,9 billion TB) created in 2020 was stored long-term (the rest were temporarily overwritten or cached), global data storage needs always exceed the expansion of the total capacity. As Zhang says, "capacity supply is decoupled from demand."
Asked if he thinks innovation in the storage industry will be enough to keep total available capacity keeping pace with demand in the coming years, Zhang hinted that he was optimistic.
He says that research into DNA storage and other emerging technologies is promising, at least on the file storage front, and that innovations on the software side will enable higher compression and thus higher file density. storage.
“Data is no longer just information, it is an asset: the oil of the digital age. Technologies such as 5G, cloud and edge computing are the tools, the data is the fuel, and the storage medium is the fuel tank that ensures supply,” said Zhang.
“We are improving the performance of storage media, networks and computing; with these three improvements, the capacity will meet the need.
MWC (Mobile World Congress) is the world's largest showcase for the mobile industry, brimming with the latest phones, tablets, wearables and more. LaComparacion reports on the program throughout the week. Follow our MWC 2022 Live Blog for the latest news as it happens and visit our dedicated MWC 2022 hub for a roundup of the biggest announcements.
Warning: Our flights and accommodation for MWC 2022 were funded by Huawei, but the organization had no editorial control over the content of this article.