Reflecting on Past 17 Years of Shingled Magnetic Recording for Insights into Future Disk Transitions: Survey

ACM Transactions on Storage has published an article written by Babar Khan, Andreas Koch, Embedded Systems and Applications Group, Computer Science, Technical University of Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany.

Abstract: “Shingled magnetic recording (SMR) is a data storage recording technology used in modern hard disk drives (HDDs) to increase the areal density capacity (ADC) of underlying media. The research on SMR drives began around 2008, with the first SMR disk entering the market in 2013. We have performed an extensive survey on SMR research, encompassing over 100 scientific research papers spanning nearly 17 years. Our survey offers an in-depth analysis of the evolution of SMR disks, examining the different types of SMR architectures and the inherent performance challenges in existing SMR disks. We have also explored how SMR technology integrates with data storage solutions like RAID and Deduplication, including an examination of real-world use cases where hyperscalers have successfully leveraged SMR for large-scale data management. Furthermore, as storage demands continue to escalate, there is a notable shift from various HDD technologies towards Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR) disks, offering potential for increased storage densities beyond 1.5Tbit/in². To this end, our survey also briefly discusses the research contributing to two specific HAMR variants such as Shingled-HAMR and Heat Interlaced Magnetic Recording (HIMR).“