western digital: Samsung partners with Western Digital to boost the adoption of next-gen storage tech – Times of India

Samsung has announced its collaboration with Western Digital to improve the adoption of next-generational storage technologies for cloud and server infrastructure. The South Korean tech giant will align its resources with the storage device maker to strengthen Zoned Storage solutions and create an ecosystem for it.
As per SamMobile’s report, the initiative that Samsung and Western Digital have started is called Zoned Storage. This project will help broader adoption of similar technologies that include — ZNS (Zoned Namespaces) SSDs and SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording) HDDs.
To enhance the adoption of Zoned Storage technologies in cloud and enterprise applications, both the companies have signed an MoU (Memorandum of Understanding). This partnership will make it easier for users as their devices will be compatible with multiple vendors (both software and hardware) for the wider ecosystem.
Western Digital has also contributed to the Linux kernel and the open-source software community to lay the foundation for Zoned Storage. Samsung will help technology to grow quicker and have wider support for both users and app developers.
Both companies will be developing high-level models and frameworks for similar storage technologies along with SNIA (Storage Networking Industry Association) and the Linux Foundation.
In December 2021, Zoned Storage Technical Working Group was approved by SNIA. This group defines the common use cases for Zoned Storage and even specifies the host/device architecture and programming models. The group may also include other emerging storage technologies such as NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe-oF) in the future.