Huawei reportedly developing 72TB SSD-tape hybrid storage amid US ban

Huawei is reportedly developing a 72TB SSD-tape hybrid storage solution. It is based on the MED (Magneto-Electric Disk) concept and can store up to 72TB of data at minimal power consumption. It can fulfill both warm and cold storage needs.

Following the US ban and trade regulations, Huawei has been dealing with several challenges. One of these was to access hard drives from foreign (American) firms.

Although the latest report hints that Huawei is now developing its own SSD tape hybrid storage solution to store 72TB of data at once. This new tech can easily replace traditional hard drives with better features and storage capabilities.

MED technology can easily identify and meet nearline (warm) and archive (cold) storage requirements. The new drive requires a tape, motor, read and write head, and tape spools. These components are integrated into the tape system and a single-sealed unit. With this mechanism, SSDs perform like a disk with block storage.

Unlike traditional tape storage, the new tech doesn’t need an additional drive for a read/write unit. The incoming data initially reaches the SSD unit and then proceeds to the tape storage. The transmission is possible with metadata maps stored in NAND. It locates specific data blocks and obtains them via SSD or tap.

Huawei reportedly developing 72TB SSD-tape hybrid storage amid US ban (Image Credits: BlockandFiles)

Speaking of the performance, the MED-based SSD storage solutions offer quite effective functioning. It can store 72TB of data in one go. Besides, it only needs 10% of the total power consumed by traditional disk drives. The SSD solutions can achieve 8GB/s transmission speed under 2kW of power.

As a result, the new Huawei SSD solution is a cost-effective and power-efficient tech for data centers. Many Chinese cloud vendors already seeking ways to adopt the new storage solution. Although the first-gen SSD-tape hybrid storage will be ready by next year while the second-gen tech may launch in 2026 or 2027.

(Via)