Samsung to work with Western Digital on next-gen storage technology 

Samsung Electronics Co. and Western Digital Technologies Inc. announced Wednesday the two parties signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to collaborate on developing a new solid-state drive (SSD) technology.

The MOU marks the first collaboration between Samsung and Western Digital and will mainly target enterprise and cloud applications. 

The first step of the MOU will be on creating an ecosystem for Zoned Storage solutions. Zoned Storage is a class of storage devices that allows both host and storage devices to cooperate in order to achieve higher storage capacities, increased throughput and lower latencies.

Going forward, the companies will work to standardize and drive broad adoption of next-generation data placement, processing and fabrics (D2PF) storage technologies. 

“Storage is the essential foundation for how people and businesses consume and use data,” said Rob Soderbery, EVP and GM, Flash Business Unit at Western Digital. “To enable today’s needs and tomorrow’s next big ideas, we must innovate, collaborate and keep pace as an industry in bringing new standards and architectures to life.’

“This collaboration is a testament to our relentless effort to exceed customers’ needs now and in the future, and holds special meaning in how we anticipate it will actively grow into a larger basis of engagement for Zoned Storage standardization,” said Jinman Han, Corporate EVP, Head of Memory Sales & Marketing at Samsung Electronics.

Previously, the industry leaders founded the Zoned Storage TWG (Technical Work Group), which was approved by Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) in December 2021. 

In its press release, Samsung announced the collaboration will serve as a starting point to expand zone-based device interfaces, as well as future-generation, high-capacity storage devices with enhanced data placement and processing technologies.

Write to Hyung-Suk Song at click@hankyung.com
Jee Abbey Lee edited this article.