Upcoming Data Storage Technologies to Keep an Eye On

Magnetic drums, tape drives, floppy disks, hard disks, compact discs, digital video discs, and numerous other technologies have all, at one time or another, been widely used as storage media. Today, the march toward fast, reliable, affordable, and durable storage media continues at full speed.

With new storage technologies arriving at a breakneck pace, here's a quick look at how the data storage industry is likely to advance over the next few years.

The Current Outlook for Storage Tech

Technology, deployment model, and cross-industry issues are all contributing to the evolution of data storage, according to Tong Zhang, a professor at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, as well as co-founder and chief scientist for ScaleFlux. An uptick in new technologies and further acceleration in data generation growth are also moving storage technologies forward. Deployment models for compute and storage must evolve as edge, near-edge, and IoT devices change the landscape of IT infrastructure landscape, he says. “Cross-industry issues, such as data security and environmental impact/sustainability, are also major factors driving data storage changes.”

Four distinct factors are currently driving the evolution in storage technology: cost, capacity, interface speeds, and density, observes Allan Buxton, director of forensics at data recovery firm Secure Data Recovery Services. Hard disk manufacturers are competing with solid-state drive (SSD) makers by decreasing access and seek times while offering higher storage capacities at a lower cost, he explains. “Solid-state manufacturers tout their higher I/O speeds and the ability to rapidly adopt new form factors.” Both SSD and hard disk makers tout improved reliability, but there is no clear-cut winner in real world tests, Buxton notes.

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