Podcast #95: The Latest in HDD Technologies With WD’s Ashley Gorakhpurwalla

Brian talks with Western Digital’s Ashley Gorakhpurwalla, Executive Vice President and General Manager, HDD Business, about his transition from a storage consumer at Dell Technologies to leading WD’s HDD business. The pair cover off on the direction hard drives are heading, bringing products to market, and much more in this in-depth podcast.

Prior to joining Western Digital to head up the HDD Business Unit, Ashley spent 20 years with Dell Technologies. He has a strong background in storage, systems engineering, and infrastructure. Brian and Ashley have a relationship that spans ten years in the storage and systems sector.

This podcast gets into developing and delivering products to the enterprise, emerging technologies, and how to increase HDD capacity. This discussion will answer many questions around the continuing need and evolving HDD market and why that is important. It is well worth a listen, but if you want to focus on a particular topic, the timestamp is below.

Intro:

Brian introduction
Ashley’s background and history

Minute 5:00

The process to bring product to market
Helium sealed hard drive challenges
Extensive test and acceptance for helium-sealed drive

Minute 10:00

What’s in the lab today
AI/ML in HDD technology

Minute 15:00

Data growth
Too much to transfer
Compute power has caught up with storage technology
Data disruption
Rate of change in infrastructure changes at different pace

Minute 20:00

Correlation of F1 Racing as it relates to digital twin
Digital data creative
Explosion of data and storage

Minute 25:00

What customers are asking for relating to HDD technology
Capacity
Tiering
What is the HDD sweet-spot

Minute 30:00

Capacity gains in development
HD has become back of mind and disappearing from consumer view
The new era of HDDs
Energy-assisted perpendicular magnetic recording ePMR vs PMR

Minute 35:00

Architectural changes
Platter density technology

Minute 40:00

Architecture is based on customer demands
Metadata built into HDs
AI built into HDs
OptiNAND is fundamental to HD in future

Minute 45:

Managing complexity
Portfolio management
Sweetspot for TB space

Minute 50:00

Flash form factor
E1.S Ruler technology
Cold storage

Minute 58:00

Multi-actuator technology

Minute 63:00

NVMe – do we need another interface
50TB HDD’s are coming

Video pod on YouTube

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2 years ago

Harold Fritts

I have been in the tech industry since IBM created Selectric. My background, though, is writing. So I decided to get out of the pre-sales biz and return to my roots, doing a bit of writing but still being involved in technology.