This episode features an interview with Ed Gage, Vice President of Research at Seagate. In this episode, Ed discusses the Mozaic 3+ platform, a breakthrough in hard drive technology redefining aerial density possibilities.
This episode features an interview with Ed Gage, Vice President of Research at Seagate Technology. With over 25 years of experience, Ed spearheads advanced projects like the pioneering Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording to tackle the challenges of the growing data sphere.
Ed discusses the Mozaic 3+ platform, a breakthrough in hard drive technology redefining aerial density possibilities. He highlights Seagate's continuous innovation and commitment to pushing the boundaries of data storage to meet the growing global data demands.
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Guest Quote
“There's a conception out there that hard disk drive technology is the old technology. And I think if you know what's inside a hard drive, specifically the Mozaic platform, the number of impressive technology breakthroughs in there is amazing. I can't think of another product that contains this much new innovation.”
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Time Stamps
*(01:14) Exploring Mozaic 3+: Seagate's breakthrough
*(02:33) Understanding Mozaic Technology
*(04:27) Evolution of data storage
*(06:52) Future of data storage with Mozaic
*(13:04) Seagate's commitment to innovation
*(20:31) Sustainability and environmental impact
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Sponsor copy
Writing the Future is brought to you by Seagate. Seagate is at the forefront of storing, protecting, and activating the world's data. With explosive growth in cloud, AI, and machine learning, Seagate delivers breakthrough technology and mass-capacity storage solutions. Inspired by their values, they push beyond what's possible so you can securely store your data and easily unlock its value. Visit Seagate.com to learn more.
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Links
Learn more about the Mozaic 3+ Platform
[00:00:00] Voiceover: Welcome to Writing the Future, your ultimate guide to decoding the future of data storage. Join us as we delve into the minds of leading engineers, researchers, product managers, and technologists from around the globe. Together, we'll navigate through the intricacies of tomorrow's data storage landscape.
[00:00:33] Shedding light on the latest innovations and breakthroughs. At the forefront of this revolution is Seagate technology. Empowering the boundless potential of data. Through captivating conversations, we'll journey through the evolution of data storage. Uncovering the stories of those who pioneered its transformation.
[00:00:56] Come along as we unveil the blueprints for the future. Because in this podcast, we're not just predicting the future. We're writing it.
[00:01:14] In this episode, we explore Mozaic 3+ Seagate's breakthrough hard drive platform delivering unprecedented aerial densities of three terabytes per disk and beyond. We hear from Ed Gage, Vice President of Research at Seagate, on how Mozaic is redefining aerial density possibilities and how it demonstrates Seagate's commitment to pushing the boundaries of data storage to meet the growing global data demands.
[00:01:45] Ed Gage: My name is Ed Gage. I'm a Vice President of Research at Seagate Technology. So I lead a lot of the advanced technology projects that feed into our storage products. You know, we look at all kinds of advanced technologies for the future storage products. The ever growing data sphere presents a real challenge for Seagate and for all of our customers.
[00:02:05] I joined Seagate in the late 90s to work on one of our first optically assisted recording technologies. And then I left. Briefly, we came back and joined Seagate Research in 2003 to start to lead what we were then calling the Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording Project, which was staffed mostly in Pittsburgh, and that grew and grew.
[00:02:27] And now it's finally ready for productization after many years of incredible development.
[00:02:33] Voiceover: So what is Mozaic? What's inside the drive? Let's hear it from Ed.
[00:02:40] Ed Gage: To me, there are three really critical parts of the Mozaic Platform. The first technology is the nanoplasmonic writer, which takes that laser light and guides to a very, very small electromagnetic spot in the media, which allows us to record a very, very small bit, allowing us to increase the aerial density.
[00:03:01] Voiceover: Pause for a second. What is aerial density anyway? Aerial density measures how much data can be squeezed into a given area on the surface of your hard drive's disk. The higher the aerial density, the more data your hard drive can store, like adding skyscrapers to a city skyline to accommodate more residents.
[00:03:24] Ed Gage: The second, uh, really incredible technology in our Mozaic Platform is our super lattice platinum alloy media. By arranging the iron and platinum atoms into a very specific structure, a super lattice structure, we're able to create very, very high magnetic energy density, which allows us to cram more bits into a smaller and smaller area.
[00:03:46] The third, uh, really exciting part of the Mozaic Platform is, is really the brains. The brains of everything is our custom system on a chip, which controls all of the other components in the hard disk drive. Our system on a chip takes in the user data, encodes it, encrypts it, sends that to the cloud. to the, the nanoplasmonic writer, records it on the disk.
[00:04:08] Then it reads that data back, decodes it, decrypts it, performs error correction, and returns that data. In addition, it's also controlling all the mechanics and all the other features in the hard disk drive at the same time. There are a lot of, uh, gates in that chip performing a lot of amazing functions at very high speed.
[00:04:27] Voiceover: Let's take a moment to hear Ed unravel the history behind Seagate's Mozaic development and its intertwined history with Perpendicular Magnetic Recording, or PMR, technology.
[00:04:39] Ed Gage: In the late nineties, optical data storage had a higher aerial density than hard disk drives. And at the same time, we started to predict something called the super paramagnetic limit that said hard drives could only go to a certain density.
[00:04:53] And so we started looking at optically assisted technologies, but at that same time, perpendicular magnetic recording was starting to be developed, and we saw a very large extension of aerial densities for hard disk drives. So we paused the project in about 2000 and then started to back up. In about 2002 2003, and the reason was, whenever we launch a new technology, the first thing people ask is, that's great, what's next?
[00:05:19] And in fact, we're just asking that technology, what's after Mozaic? So when we started developing perpendicular magnetic recording products and asked, what's next? There were really three technologies that we started to explore. Microwave assisted recording, bit pattern media, and heat assisted magnetic recording, or HAMR.
[00:05:38] Seagate very rapidly went through all of the technologies and quickly came to the conclusion that heat assisted magnetic recording was the right path and concentrated our development activities in that area. Our competitors continued to research all of the different technologies, which really slowed their progress and left them quite a ways behind in HAMR.
[00:05:59] Mozaic, uh, will definitely include our heat assisted magnetic recording, uh, technology that we've developed over many years. And, you know, the whole industry, I think, has begun to accept this is the path forward to increased capacity in hard disk drives. But since they started kind of late jumping onto this technology, they're many years behind where Seagate is today.
[00:06:19] Our first Mozaic products, our first HAMR products, will be right around 3 terabytes per disk. But there is a scaling to all the features in the hard disk drive that lets us extend that technology. And we're confident we'll be able to double that over the next 3 to 5 years. So as we introduce the Mozaic, With this technology, we already have people focused on how far can this take us.
[00:06:40] We've already demonstrated in our labs the technology that gets us to over five terabytes per disk. And that's because of some key developments in our heads organization, our media organization and our systems group.
[00:06:52] Voiceover: Mozaic technology is reshaping the landscape of data storage capabilities. Let's discuss how it differs from the primary technology used today, perpendicular magnetic recording or PMR.
[00:07:06] Ed explains.
[00:07:08] Ed Gage: So today's technology is called perpendicular magnetic recording, and we've scaled that to incredible aerial densities already, getting capacities of 20 plus terabytes. But to scale it further, we need to further shrink the grain size. And in order to do that, we need to make the magnetics that are in that grain even stronger.
[00:07:26] And now we have to make them so strong that we can't write them with a conventional magnetic writer. And we've had to use heat from a nanoplasmonic writer in order to heat up the media to the point where we can then flip the bits and record the information. So we're actually creating a plasmon, which is a, a bound state of electromagnetic energy and electrons.
[00:07:48] And it gets down close to the media and the movement of the electrons creates a field that causes the movement of the electrons in the media. And when those electrons move in the lossy platinum superlattice, that becomes very, very hot. Very quickly, but the heat is very much confined to within that granular structure.
[00:08:07] It's not spread out over the disc. It's not, you know, spread out down through the disc. So we keep that heat very confined to the small area that we're trying to write. So perpendicular magnetic recording made it a little over one terabit per square inch was a little bit over two terabytes per disc. And the reason was the magnetic material could only support grain sizes that fit into a, uh, one terabit per square inch, uh, aerial density.
[00:08:33] So the laser provides an energy source that heats up the media only in a very, very small area so that we can record the bits with our writer, our magnetic writer, in the recording head. So the nanoplasmatic antenna enables us to use a recording media, recording material, platinum superlattice, that can support a much higher aerial density than the previous cobalt platinum alloys we were using in PMR products.
[00:09:03] So the Mozaic technology has been developing for 20 years, and we started out really just trying to come up with a number of ideas of how we could increase the capacity, the aerial density, in a hard disk drive technology, and there was a number of roadblocks that we had to overcome, from how to create this super small thermal spot in the media, how we found a new media That could translate that into a much higher capacity.
[00:09:27] And then of course it has to all integrate into the hard disk drive system and our manufacturing processes, which were also incredible challenges that had to be overcome. One of the most interesting areas was how to get a laser down into the nanoplasmonic antenna. And I have to tell you, we had many, many different solutions from running a fiber to running it through free space to the head.
[00:09:51] And it wasn't until we started to develop our own integrated options. Seagate that we were able to really integrate the laser into a recording head, and that really is a real enabler for manufacturing a hard disk drive.
[00:10:05] Voiceover: As we've heard from Ed, Mozaic Technology is unlocking data storage capacities once deemed impossible.
[00:10:14] But why is capacity per disk such a big deal? Let's hear Ed explain.
[00:10:20] Ed Gage: As we increase the terabytes per disk, we also increase the terabytes per dollar, which allows our customers to store more data, which is the backbone of the cloud, AI, and many, many other applications. It's also increasing the terabytes per watt, so we're becoming more power friendly.
[00:10:39] It's the terabytes per, per area, so we're becoming more efficient with our data centers. So there's a number of benefits as you increase the, the aerial density and the capacity within a hard drive. If you have a mass capacity application where the number of terabytes, petabytes, exabytes you're trying to store is very large, hard drives are by far the most economical way to store it.
[00:11:01] And, you know, we do hear all the time that SSDs are going to eat into that. So what SSDs have done is changed the architecture so we can address the performance and the capacity using different technologies. If you go into any modern data center, you would see a combination of SSDs and HDDs working together to provide the performance and the capacity for that application.
[00:11:23] So there's a number of new applications that keep driving larger and larger capacity requirements. Of course, video is an important one. But as we look to AIML, the everyday data that we used to discard now has more and more value. And so our goal is to save more and more data. In order to do that, I have to make the cost of storing data keep going down.
[00:11:44] The capacity in a hard drive and the cost for the hard drive have gone down. Incredibly over, you know, the last, I think we're at close to 50 years of Seagate technology developing hard disk drive technology. I bought my first hard drive in 1988, and it was 5 megabytes, and it was about 750. Today, 5 megabytes is, you know, not of interest at all, of course.
[00:12:10] Mozaic 3+, by increasing the capacity in a given hard drive, is going to result in a great decrease in the total cost of ownership.
[00:12:20] Voiceover: So with all this talk about increased capacities, it begs the question, how much data do we really need? Let's dive in.
[00:12:30] Ed Gage: Yeah, there's been a discussion for many, many years of how much data do we really need, right?
[00:12:34] The 64 kilobyte limit for Windows is kind of a famous example. But we keep coming up with more applications that keep consuming more and more data. I think the latest example is probably artificial intelligence, which makes all of our data more valuable and then generates a lot more new content. So we need more storage to keep enabling all of these new applications.
[00:12:55] We need to keep increasing the capacity of our storage products in order to allow more applications in the same amount of power, the same footprint, and the same cost.
[00:13:05] Voiceover: A breakthrough like this doesn't come about without a serious research and development effort. How does that work at Seagate?
[00:13:13] Ed Gage: So Seagate's R& D process really starts with filling our funnel with a number of ideas.
[00:13:19] But I think one of Seagate's strengths is picking the right idea and really focusing our attention. As we look back in time, there was a number of technologies that we looked at to replace perpendicular magnetic recording. But by quickly choosing HAMR, we were able to have our Mozaic Platform, you know, Now, we're finally able to bring our Mozaic technology to market.
[00:13:41] And that's because we started investing in this technology, started overcoming the challenges many, many years ago. As we bring the Mozaic 3+ platform to market, it's important to remember this is probably the most tested, the most verified technology we've ever introduced. Many, many years we've been testing this technology as we further the development.
[00:14:01] For the Mozaic 3+ technology, we've been building hard disk drives for the last 10 years and then running them to failure and then analyzing the different failure modes and then going back to our heads, media, and drive R& D partners to strengthen the system to avoid those failure modes.
[00:14:20] Voiceover: The fruit of all that labor.
[00:14:22] The Mozaic 3+ Platform is now available. What's the so what?
[00:14:29] Ed Gage: The Mozaic Platform is truly a breakthrough in technology. The number of technical innovation that's in there is truly amazing. It's amazing for what it enables for our customer. You know, we start at the three terabyte per disc. We've already demonstrated the five terabyte per disc in our laboratories.
[00:14:47] And we have ideas and modeling that take us to 10 terabyte per disc. So it's truly a breakthrough technology today that we could just keep extending for many years. So in the Mozaic Platform, there are a number of amazing technical breakthroughs. And obviously, they're very important for us in our hard disk drive development.
[00:15:05] But that technology has applications in a number of different areas. Seagate's already spun out a LIDAR, uh, set of technologies that came from the Mozaic Platform. And there's a number of other areas that we're looking at leveraging those breakthroughs into other applications. You know, Seagate's not just a hard drive technology, we're really a technology company.
[00:15:27] And the breakthroughs that we've developed in the Mozaic Platform have the capability of really impacting a number of other applications, other technologies. And Seagate's working on those today. There's a conception out there that hard disk drive technology is the old technology. And I think if you know what's inside a hard drive, specifically the Mozaic Platform, the number of impressive technology breakthroughs in there is amazing.
[00:15:54] I can't think of another product that contains this much new innovation.
[00:16:00] Voiceover: Seagate has been dedicated to this innovation for quite some time now, and it takes an entire company to deliver technologies like this. Ed explains what innovation means at Seagate.
[00:16:13] Ed Gage: The Mozaic Platform really demonstrates innovation and continuous innovation over a long period of time for a number of outstanding scientists, amazing engineers.
[00:16:24] The entire team had a number of different breakthroughs that came together to create this new breakthrough technology. When you develop a breakthrough technology over the many years that it took to bring HAMR technology to market, being completely honest and communicating the status of your progress and of your failures is extremely important.
[00:16:46] And I think that's really been shown by the support we've gotten from all of Seagate to keep going in this technology, even though we faced many challenges along the way. So I think one of the most exciting things as we bring the Mozaic Platform to market is, I think, The world will have to recognize the amount of technology in a hard disk drive and the amount of technology that Seagate developed.
[00:17:10] Of course, that also leads us to now, what is the next technology after, after HAMR? And so we're already starting to come up with a set of ideas that we needed to tackle. And so we're kind of right back in that early stages of innovation and invention back to we had many years ago. Seagate's, uh, culture of innovation will spread beyond just the hard disk drive.
[00:17:32] The things, the breakthroughs that we've come up with that are in HAMR shall have applications in a number of other areas and I'm very excited to see that technology make an impact in many, many areas.
[00:17:45] Voiceover: Seagate has cemented its position at the forefront of data storage technology, consistently pushing boundaries with groundbreaking innovations such as Mozaic.
[00:17:57] Now, let's hear from Ed as he explores how Seagate is spearheading this transformative change, reshaping the trajectory of data storage capabilities.
[00:18:08] Ed Gage: The Mozaic Platform clearly establishes Seagate as the leader in the data storage technology. It's such an exciting set of breakthroughs that we're able to combine to bring us to these new capacities.
[00:18:19] So the Mozaic Platform, I mean, it's a very big deal for Seagate to finally bring this technology to market, but it's also a big deal for all of the data storage industry. They can now store more bytes for less money. Which allows us to keep increasing the capacity in our data centers, which allows a number of new applications.
[00:18:39] So there's a number of areas where Seagate is at the leading edge of nanotechnology, whether it's in our media, where our grain size is now much less than 10 nanometers, to it's creating a nanoplasmonic, uh, Writer that has features that are less than 25 nanometers. So there's a number of areas we're right on the cutting edge of nanotechnology.
[00:19:04] Yeah, as we developed the, uh, the HAMR technology, material science played a key role in both the media and the heads. This whole plasmonic technology was in its infancy when we started working on HAMR and required development of a number of new, uh, materials, new deposition techniques that are part of the Mozaic Platform.
[00:19:23] Voiceover: It takes everyone coming together to create something this big, and it takes a lot of different perspectives and experiences. At Seagate, the strength is in the diversity of individuals who contribute to our breakthroughs.
[00:19:39] Ed Gage: The innovation that brought us here. The Mozaic Platform, the HEMR technology over 20 years, really included people from all over the world, from different parts of academia, industry, um, government labs.
[00:19:53] Uh, we partnered with a number of different people along the way to really make this happen. The breakthroughs that enable the HAMR technology. I think one of the strengths of Seagate is we've been able to integrate a number of different ideas from people from new college grads to experts at a university.
[00:20:09] We were able to include all of those ideas to come up with the breakthroughs that we've put into the Mozaic Platform. So the Mozaic Platform is really the summation of all of the innovation that we've developed over many, many years. So I'm personally very excited that after all of this development, all this innovation, all this hard work, we're really ready to bring this technology to market.
[00:20:31] Voiceover: As we build the future of the data sphere, sustainability and the environmental impact of our products and the data industry at large is top of our minds. How does Mozaic 3+ help us meet the challenges and requirements of the world we live in?
[00:20:48] Ed Gage: Here, our Mozaic Platform addresses the power requirements in a data center, which helps with, you know, our environmental footprint.
[00:20:57] The other important technology in there is we've got encryption technology that works with our data sanitization tools to allow you to completely erase the user data that's on the hard disk drive, and there's no need to crush it or shred it, that type of thing. Hard drive can, you know, be recycled to other purposes.
[00:21:16] So, all of the data on our hard drives should be encrypted. And when you're done using that hard drive, when you're ready to repurpose that hard drive, we have a data sanitization tool set that lets us remove those keys and so that data can no longer be recovered. And our hope is that prevents people from crushing or shredding the drives and instead the drives can be repurposed and kept, you know, in the, uh, being used to store data.
[00:21:44] So our Mozaic Platform contains our Seagate Secure technology. We've developed a set of data sanitization tools that let us remove the keys so the data can no longer be recovered, that encrypted data is completely gone. And that allows our customers to repurpose, recycle, return the drive to us. There's a number of ways we can improve the circularity of the data storage lifecycle.
[00:22:09] Through Seagate's Circularity Program, we can take back drives and repurpose them, recycle, refurbish, and keep them out of the landfill. It's part of our mission of crafting a more sustainable data sphere.
[00:22:23] Voiceover: As we wrap up today's episode, we can't overlook Ed's pivotal role in shaping Mozaic technology.
[00:22:31] It's been a privilege to have him share his insights with us. Now, let's hear Ed's final thoughts.
[00:22:38] Ed Gage: As we bring the Mozaic Platform to market, I think it's very important to remember all the people that contributed to this technology over many, many years. And I personally want to thank them for their innovation, their hard work to bring this amazing technology to market.
[00:22:53] See The hard drive industry has been cyclical up and down, but I really want to thank our finance people, our executives, for continuing to support this project through all of those different cycles, and we would not have got here without their support.
[00:23:08] Voiceover: Thank you for joining us on this episode of Writing the Future.
[00:23:12] We'd like to thank Ed Gage for sharing his amazing journey at Seagate and how Mozaic technology is truly the future of data storage. Don't miss out on future episodes. Be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. For more information about Seagate, visit seagate. com. Until next time, let's continue writing the future together.