This presentation delves into the development and implementation of a multi-petabyte archive storage solution, focusing on the challenges and architectural choices made to accommodate Host Managed Shingled Magnetic Recording (HM-SMR) drives in a software-defined storage environment. We will discuss the sequential write constraints of SMR drives and compare various HM-SMR libraries from a software engineering standpoint.

In this talk, we'll delve into the transformative potential of selective write-grouping within software-defined storage (SDS) systems, setting it against the backdrop of the Popular Data Concentration (PDC) approach. Both strategies are compatible with Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR) and Conventional Magnetic Recording (CMR) disks with an erasure coding. Write-grouping confines write operations to a limited subset of drives, allowing inactive drives to power down and slash energy consumption by up to 43% in SMR configurations.