We are producing colossal amounts information every day due to a profusion of digital technologies and apps that use AI/ML and IoT. Moreover, all signs indicate that demand for digital storage will continue to grow at unprecedented levels for decades to come.
To provide greater storage efficiencies and value for customers managing data at scale, Samsung Electronics and Western Digital, two of the world’s largest storage providers, have recently partnered to help usher in the standardization of next-generation data placement, processing and fabrics storage technologies (D2PF), including Zoned Storage.
The two companies believe the adoption of next-generation storage standards is the most effective way to ensure that hardware and software can be effectively combined within the system stack to maximize performance and functionality while reducing costs. Samsung and Western Digital have partnered to bring this vision into reality. They are encouraging wide industry collaboration between storage stakeholder groups. Through collaboration, the companies can help assure customers that storage ecosystem vendors support the new technology standards and system architectures for efficiently handling today’s data workloads as well as tomorrow’s.
The Reality of Today’s Data Infrastructures
We are well into the zettabyte (ZB) era, a period characterized by quantities of data so vast that understanding it has become trickier than ever. The mind-numbing amounts of data being produced today emphasizes the urgency of rethinking how data centers and cloud infrastructures are designed and operated.
Against this background of hypergrowth, there is the possibility for fragmentation about standards and systems which could slow down the ecosystem’s attempts to keep up with growing storage needs.
“We have entered into a golden era for data consumption, analytics and storage. One of the surest ways to undo all that good would be if the industry were to implement conflicting systems and standards,” said Cheolmin Park, Vice President of Memory Global Sales & Marketing at Samsung Electronics. “From AC versus DC in the old electric wars to Betamax versus VHS, history teaches us that industries which lack clear standards and formats see periods of missed opportunities and wasteful spending. The adoption of effective standards will minimize complexity, drive out inefficiency and reduce the cost of products and services, which benefits vendors and end-users alike. If data storage is to meet the future needs of end-users, what the industry needs now is broad consensus on Zoned Storage. “
Focusing on the Future of Zoned Storage
As part of Samsung and Western Digital’s agreement, the companies are focusing their initial efforts on creating a healthy ecosystem and solid application support around Zoned Storage.
Currently, large-scale data infrastructure relies on tens of thousands of solid-state drives (SSDs) and hard-disk drives (HDDs). Because these large-scale systems are so complex and manage such a lot of data, any inconsistency in storage device or system architecture can lead to costly costs.
Zoned Storage, an open-source and standards-based project that allows data center storage infrastructures to scale effectively and efficiently, is Zoned Storage For hyperscale cloud and enterprise vendors, some of which possess ZB-scale storage needs, Zoned Storage will help to improve asset utilization, lower latency and reduce costs.
Zoned storage is made up of two technologies. These are Shingled Magnetic Recording in HDDs or Zoned Namespaces in SSDs. ZNS SSDs are the heart of Zoned Storage. These drives divide their address space into distinct zones, streamlining the drive architecture by equipping the host with the ability to place data in the appropriate zone.
Future-Forward Technology for a Data-First World
As an innovative storage solution, Zoned Storage has unconventional data-writing rules. Zones can be written sequentially starting from the beginning of a zone, and the data within a zone cannot be arbitrarily overwritten. Therefore, it is highly important that the industry aligns around the host software stack that enables storage systems to optimally leverage the power of Zoned Storage. This host-device model alignment is a crucial theme of the overall initiative. Samsung, Western Digital, and other ecosystem partners have committed to contributing software components to enable Zoned Storage’s success via the open-source community.
Implementing Zoned Storage on the host allows system software and hardware to work in unison with much greater efficiency. ZNS can reduce the amount of over-provisioning, and it eliminates problems related to QoS variability and write amplification. The solution increases capacity due to higher device density, and can provide long-term performance even when the device has reached its maximum capacity. Furthermore, ZNS boasts greater endurance than traditional storage methods as the data does not need to be constantly rewritten.
Whether a device is SAS-SATA (HDD or SSD) or NVMe(tm) SSD, Zoned Storage can be highly effective, and will enable more efficient system-wide performance management for everyone’s benefit.
“The implementation and continued development of Zoned Storage will empower the storage industry to strike a balance between cost, latency and performance through the use of intelligent architectures,” said Wim De Wispelaere, Vice President, Strategic Initiatives at Western Digital. “As an industry, we are at a point where we must align around the technologies and systems that will drive data storage in the near future and for decades to come — in the most intelligent and efficient way possible.”
For the Benefit of All
This collaboration between Samsung & Western Digital is a reflection of both companies’ conviction that new standards are necessary for storage to meet data demand.
The two companies have already launched an initiative involving Zoned Storage devices including ZNS SSDs. As part of an effort to enable open and scalable data center architectures, they founded the Zoned Storage Technical Work Group, which SNIA approved in December 2021, and are working with the Linux Foundation to set up a similar project workgroup. Samsung and Western Digital are working together to create high-level frameworks and models for innovative Zoned Storage technologies.
ZNS is the first of numerous D2PF collaborations designed to pave the way for innovative new data centers and cloud services. Samsung and Western Digital are committed to enabling a high degree of cooperation among key stakeholders in generating storage solutions that nicely suit a data-first world, along with everyone in it.
vivo X70 Pro (left) and X70 Pro+ (right)
