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.
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
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