Seagate to demonstrate advanced technology at OCP summit 2018

Seagate Technology plc (NASDAQ: STX), a world leader in data storage solutions, unveiled its 14TB helium-based Exos™ X14 enterprise drive at the OCP U.S. Summit 2018 in San Jose, Calif. The Seagate® Exos X14 delivers high performance and greater capacity for hyperscale data centers looking to efficiently and cost-effectively manage increasing amounts of data.

Enterprises across the globe face the daunting challenge of managing a massive increase in data volume as the world is expected to create 163 zettabytes of data in 2025, according to a study by analyst firm IDC and sponsored by Seagate. As the need for hyperscale and cloud storage rises to unprecedented levels, Seagate’s Exos X14 hard drive is a direct response to customer demand for increased enterprise storage capacity and efficiency.

By offering greater storage density in the same 3.5-inch footprint, Seagate’s Exos X14 drive is ideal for hyperscale environments. Enhanced areal density means Seagate can deliver higher capacity storage in a smaller package – a milestone for meeting the demand of increasing data center needs. The Exos X14 offers the industry’s lowest power consumption, smallest footprint, and best performance in its class, making the hard drive an affordable solution for data centers looking to maximize their storage capabilities while reducing complexity and operational costs.

“Our hyperscale customers want the best value in terms of total cost of ownership and that is mainly driven by capacity, power efficiency, enhanced caching, and predictable I/O,” said Sai Varanasi, vice president, product line marketing, storage devices at Seagate. “Exos X14 shines on all four fronts by delivering 14TB with leading sustained transfer rates and random I/O responsiveness optimized for hyperscale applications.”

To further meet the needs of global data centers, Exos X14 comes with built-in security, Seagate Secure™, to encrypt all data without performance degradation. The new drive also features the United States government’s Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-2, Level 2 certification and the Common Criteria for Information Technology Security Evaluation (CC) – an international computer security certification standard (ISO/EIC 15408). Other key features include 40 percent more petabytes per rack versus Exos 10TB drives, a 10 percent weight reduction versus air nearline drives, and a flexible design that delivers wider integration options and support for a greater number of workloads.

Baidu, the world’s largest Chinese search engine and leading AI Tech Company, evaluated Seagate’s new hard drive comprehensively. “Baidu attaches great importance to technological innovation and is committed to providing a better experience and service to our users and customers through technical innovation. Our data needs continue to expand as our customers become increasingly reliant on data-heavy applications, we need to work with industry partners to build sustainable storage solutions.” said Chao Liu, senior director, system department at Baidu. “Seagate’s Exos X14 has given us a cost-effective way to easily accommodate our growing storage needs.”

The drive is currently sampling to select customers and will be followed by production availability this summer.

The Exos X14 hard drive will be on display in Seagate’s booth #A14 at the OCP U.S. Summit 2018 alongside several other Seagate products that meet Open Compute Project specifications. Additional product demonstrations will showcase the Seagate Guardian Series portfolio, Nytro Q-Boost, HAMR-based drives as well as the Nytro® 5000 NVMe SSD. Furthermore, Seagate and American Megatrends Inc. (AMI) will demonstrate how the new AMI MegaRAC® Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) Firmware enhances manageability of Seagate’s enterprise Nytro 5910 NVMe SSDs. Seagate will also exhibit MACH.2™ Multi Actuator and HAMR technology with demonstrations conducted by Seagate and Seagate technology partners.