Peter Hayles, Product Marketing Manager, Western Digital gives News in the Channel advice on Data Sorage that all SMB’s should be considering. Modern technologies like AI, IoT, automation and more are optimising efficiency of companies in almost every industry, but they are also driving a massive increase in the amount of data that is generated, collected, analysed and stored.
This data growth presents companies with a challenge. This is because it requires different data storage solutions to fulfill a wide range of requirements. As a result, companies’ storage architectures are also becoming increasingly complex. To ensure the fastest possible retrieval of performance-important ‘hot’ data, companies should rely on enterprise-class NVMe solid-state drives (SSDs). For less frequently accessed ‘warm’ or ‘cold’ data, however, more cost-effective enterprise-class hard disk drives (HDDs) should be used. This tiered approach helps to optimise the cost of storing and accessing data and can be fine-tuned according to the company’s capacity, performance, availability, and recovery requirements.
Especially for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), data and the right storage infrastructure can be a game changer. This is because data helps them to understand and improve any kind of business processes, so they can pinpoint inefficiencies in their operations and consequently, resolve challenges and save valuable money. To optimise their storage infrastructure accordingly, decision makers in these businesses need to consider some key aspects to unlock the potential of their data.
An Ability to Scale on Demand
The ability to scale is particularly important as new technologies such as AI continue to develop. As AI-powered applications will process and analyse existing information, they will generate significantly more valuable insights and data, ultimately helping to contribute to a companies’ success. This continuous loop of data generation and consumption is increasing the need for scalable and efficient, but also cost effective high-performing data storage solutions that can keep pace with business growth and manage large data sets as well as rapid technology advancements.
Ensuring the Lowest Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
Companies of any size are interested in keeping the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of implemented technologies down. There are different options to do so. By moving to the higher capacity HDDs, for example, companies can increase their storage density without increasing the physical footprint. HDDs also offer competitive watts per terabyte (w/TB), which can ultimately lower power consumption and cooling costs due to less heat generation. If decision makers are looking for higher performance, SSDs are a great choice as they offer higher Input/Output per second (IOPS). Other storage considerations are reliability, energy efficiency, size and flexibility. As different workloads require different performance levels, it is critical that the storage infrastructure matches the needs of the use case. In addition to this, the chosen solutions need to be reliable and ensure data integrity. Storage manufacturers like Western Digital® have continued to push the boundaries by delivering highly reliable, higher-capacity, lower-power drives to store the vast amounts of data that businesses are generating.
A Best-in-Class Solution
Getting the best value when investing in new storage media is paramount for companies seeking to stay competitive or grow. Western Digital’s range of WD Gold® HDDs provide the huge capacity, scalability, low TCO, and cost-effectiveness that businesses of any size need. These HDDs are a great choice for data hubs with massive capacities and continuous data access and are purpose-built for the demanding enterprise data center market. This makes them a great solution for server rooms, tower workstations and RAID arrays for small to large business applications they provide.
Available in capacities of 1TB to 24TB1, with OptiNANDTM technology [https://blog.westerndigital.com/optinand-explained/] in 20TB1 and above, these HDDs are scalable on demand and tailor-engineered for heavy application workloads of up to 550TB2 per year, enabling SMEs to enhance their storage mix with an enterprise-grade solution. Broadly compatible with major enterprise operating systems, they offer high reliability in demanding environments providing up to 2.5M hours of mean time between failures (MTBF)3.
Specifically designed for improved system responsiveness, power loss protection, and high performance with low latency, the Western Digital® Ultrastar® DC SN655 NVMeTM SSDs alternatively offer enterprise-class speeds with low power consumption. Available in a range of capacities to meet business customer’s specific needs, the SSDs can work alone or perfectly complement the WD Gold® HDDs to handle tough workloads with reliable endurance in a tiered storage environment.
Built to a world-class standard, WD Gold® HDDs and Western Digital® Ultrastar® SSDs are meeting enterprise level requirements and delivering the capacity and performance necessary for businesses to scale and grow.
References
1 1TB = 1 trillion bytes. Actual user capacity may be less depending on operating environment
2 MTBF: Projected values for model numbers WD241KRYZ, WD221KRYZ, and WD202KRYZ. Final MTBF and AFR specifications will be based on a sample population and are estimated by statistical measurements and acceleration algorithms under typical operating conditions, workloads of 220TB/year and 40°C device-reported temperature. Derating of MTBF and AFR will occur above these parameters, up to 550TB/year and 60°C (device reported temperature). MTBF and AFR ratings do not predict an individual drive’s reliability and do not constitute a warranty.
3 Workload Rate is defined as the amount of user data transferred to or from the hard drive. Workload Rate is annualized (TB transferred X (8760 / recorded power-on hours)). Workload Rate will vary depending on your hardware and software components and configurations.
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