Zoned Storage

Higher Capacities, Lower TCO & Improved QoS

Conquer massive data growth with Zoned Storage

Data volumes created by enterprises, machines, and consumer-generated content continue to drive demand for data center storage capacities at petabyte, exabyte and even zettabyte scale. Today, large scale data infrastructure already uses tens of thousands of SSDs and HDDs. Managing the extreme scale of data in a cost-effective manner is quickly becoming a requirement.

Zoned Storage is an open, standards-based initiative to enable data centers to scale efficiently for the zettabyte storage capacity era. There are two technologies behind Zoned Storage, Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR) in HDDs and Zoned Namespaces (ZNS) in SSDs. With a unified software framework, data can be intelligently placed on both SMR HDDs and ZNS SSDs to increase storage capacity, lower TCO and improve QoS. With Zoned Storage, data center and cloud providers can more cost effectively scale storage for the zettabyte age.

Conventional
Device controls data placement

Zoned
Applications control data placement in zones

Benefits of Zoned Storage for the Datacenter

Zoned storage devices, such as ZNS SSDs are divided into zones, significantly simplifying the drive architecture and minimizing the need for complex data management. With a unified software stack, the host is able to intelligently place data in different zones which enables these key benefits:

Increased Capacities

Higher density and scale as virtually no over-provisioning is required

Improved Qos

With minimal garbage collection required, the device controller can respond quicker

Reduced Cost

Significantly reduced DRAM requirements and fewer support logic functions are required

Increased Endurance

Because the data is not constantly re-written, the endurance is improved

Zoned Storage

Data Taken As-Is

Serialize Data

ZNS SSD

Developers can find libraries and tools at: https://zonedstorage.io

Introducing Western Digital’s first-generation Zoned Storage SSD, the Ultrastar® DC ZN540 NVMe ZNS SSD

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Featured Downloads

When you have access to information, the possibilities are endless. Accelerate the flow of your data, so your data can thrive.

ZNS support for MySQL

Western Digital and Percona deliver Ultrasar DC ZN540 ZNS SSD support for Percona Server for MySQL.

Zoned Storage White Paper

A detailed explanation of both ZNS SSD and SMR HDD technologies and the software ecosystem support.

What is Zoned Storage?

An introduction article to zoned storage in a Q & A format.

Press Release

Western Digital extends flash portfolio press release. Includes the first ZNS SSD, Ultrastar DC ZN540.

NVMe Zoned Namespaces Explained

An article on Zoned Storage and why it is important for the data center.

SMR White Paper

Explore the HDD technologies which enable scale for data center and enterprise drives.

Innovating for a Data-Centric World

Video

FEATURE VIDEO

The Cube: Video Interview

A conversational video featuring Phil Bullinger, Senior Vice President on the Cube. The discussion covers the challenges of data center architectures, solutions that Western Digital has embarked upon, including zoned storage and other topics.

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