Antek Peripherals Inc.

The problem

•  The hard disk drive (HDD) consumes 7 watts idling and 11 watts reading and writing information. In Data Centers 1,000 HDDs will burn 7,000 watts performing no useful function. Another 14,000 watts will be required to cool the units to prevent read errors and device failures.
• The US EPA reports domestic Data Centers will consume >100 billion watts of electricity costing more than $8 billion annually. http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/0de87f2b4bcbe56e852572a000651fde/4be8c9799fbceb028525732c0053e1d5!OpenDocument
• Solid State Drives (SSDs) have relegated the HDD to tier 2 and “near-line” status in the Data Center.
• The 30+ year old HDD technology uses thick disks which operate continuously to attain low latency to data, consuming power and generating heat. 
• Ultra-portable computers need thinner HDDs (sub 5mm tall), faster "on/off" functionality, operation with low voltage batteries, and increased shock endurance.

Our approach

Antek Peripherals is researching very thin, metal disk substrates to decrease spinning inertia in the HDD by more than 6 times with the goal to reduce power consumption and increase storage capacity. We have demonstrated we can achieve greater than 3X more data capacity per watt of power consumed. Our technology changes the hard disk substrate, and other components in the HDD remain the same.

Data Center Workloads:

 Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Tech Brief 04/2010, http://www.hitachigst.com/tech/techlib.nsf/techdocs/F81A37DF296938BF8625763B00048D41/$file/SSD_techbrief.pdf

 Data Storage Power Consumption:

 More than 60% of storage power goes into keeping HDDs spinning

HP Business White Paper: “Storage Efficiencies That Unlock Green Savings”, 12/2011. Get paper