Latest Reports & Tech Papers

Media and Entertainment 2022

Emerging Memories 2023

Emerging Memories Branch Out 2023 (cover)

Digital Storage Technology Newsletter

Digital Storage Technology Newsletter


The Digital Storage Technology Newsletter is a quarterly publication by Coughlin Associates.

Subscription includes membership of Entertainment Storage Alliance and Report discounts.

Featured Presentations and Papers

High-Capacity Hard Disk Drives Lower Data Center Total Cost of Ownership (TCO 2022)

The world’s demand for data is exploding to meet the needs of an AI, immersive video and internet of things driven future. According to IDC, the cumulative annual growth rate for data generation is 23%1 and although only a small percentage of this data is retained long term, this is driving the demand for digital storage including HDDs.

2020 Survey Summary for Storage in Professional Media and Entertainment

In February through June of 2020 Coughlin Associates, Inc. conducted a survey of professional media and entertainment professionals on various digital storage topics. Here’s a summary of the results.

Beyond the Data Event Horizon

An exploration of touch rate and response time.

Chinese Flash Forum Presentation

The Future of Solid State Storage.

2021 Survey Summary for Storage in Professional Media and Entertainment

In February through June of 2021 Coughlin Associates, Inc. conducted a survey of professional media and entertainment professionals on various digital storage topics. Here’s a summary of the results.

2019 Survey Summary for Storage in Professional Media and Entertainment

In February through June of 2019, Coughlin Associates, Inc. conducted a survey of professional media and entertainment professionals on various digital storage topics. Here’s a summary of the results.

Data Storage and Personal Entertainment

Digital storage technology is developing providing more storage at a lower price and higher performance while personal entertainment devices need more storage capacity and higher resolution content requirements.

ChangXin Memory Technologies: China’s Rising DRAM Manufacturer

The semiconductor industry is a global industry. Design of semiconductor chips is done throughout the world. The actual manufacturing of semiconductor devices (chips) is dominated today by companies in the Asia-Pacific. These include companies in China, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. Let’s take a look at a DRAM manufacturer in China, ChangXin Memory Technologies, and talk about their role in the semiconductor industry.


9 Years of Media & Entertainment Digital Storage Surveys (2018)

From 2009 through 2018 Coughlin Associates conducted 9 surveys of media and entertainment professionals about their use of digital storage and memory in media and entertainment workflows. This presentation from the 2018 SMPTE Technical Conference gives a summary of some of the results these 9 surveys.


Successful MRAM Production Requires Good Magnetic Test Equipment

Important keys for successful manufacturing of non-volatile memory products are good design, including testing and verification of device properties and once in manufacturing, quality control testing at the wafer and device level. We will look at the manufacturing and testing of emerging non-volatile memory technologies that will enable IoT, AI and advanced network development and commercialization.

Touching the Heart of Storage

A new metric comparing touch rate and response time can be used to characterize storage devices and in system design.

Storage With Intense Network Growth (SWING)

The 2015 Storage Visions theme was “Storage With Intense Network Growth” and we had a variety of sessions exploring growth drivers and opportunities.

A Moore’s Law for Mobile Power?

With more energy in mobile devices, we can do more with them during the course of the day.

Archiving and Flash Memory

Flash memory is finding a role for caching content to be written or read from archive media. Could flash memory fill a useful tier for an active archive?

Ampex Video Tape Recorder Milestone Ceremony

The history and background of the first practical video tape recorder.

Whitepapers and More


Persistent Memory, NVM Programming Model and NVDIMMS, MSST Presentation (2018)

SCV CES Download, Tom Coughlin (2018)

Storage and Memory Behind the Hits (2018)

The Power of Memory, Tom Coughlin (2018)

A Look at Memory and Storage Trends (2018)

Digital Storage Technology Roadmaps and Implications for Cloud Computing (2017)

Machines and Humans, Better Together? (2017)

The Future of Memory and Storage (2017)

Why People Use Solid-State Storage (2017)

The Memory of Cars Presentation (2016)

IOPS Changing Needs, Coughlin and Handy (2016)

Digital Storage for Archiving, Tom Coughlin (2016)

Touch Rate White Paper (2015)

Aligning with the Future of Storage–4K Sector Misalignment (2011)

Angels in our Midst: Associative Metadata in Cloud Storage (2010)

Flash and HDD: Symbiosis or Survival of the Fittest? (2009)

eSATA: A New Storage Paradigm (2007)

Archiving in the Entertainment and Professional Media Market (2008)

Survey of Storage in Media and Entertainment (2014)

Ultra HD Storage Innovations and Trends for Professional M&E Industry (2014)

Memories of the Future (2014)

Why Hybrid Storage Gives the Best Bang for the Buck (2014)

Survey of Storage in Media and Entertainment (2013)

Meeting Exa-Scale Archive Requirements in the Digital Age of Media and Entertainment (2013)

The New Archive Workflow (with Crossroads Systems (2013)

Full Motion Video White Paper - with NetApp (2012)

Storage Trends–from SV 2012 (2012)

Collaborative Workflows Benefit from Cloud Storage (2011)

Invest in New Technologies or Divest in Market Share (2010)

Reliability and Recovery: How can we make better Storage Devices? (2010)

Why Choose Different Storage Devices–The Future of Storage Tiers (2010)

A Novel Taxonomy for Consumer Metadata - ICCE (2010)

SV 2010, Showstoppers, CES and ICCE Storage Recap (2010)

Data Storage for Professional Media and Entertainment (2009)

Storage, as if your life depended upon it… (2009)

Storage Highlights of 2009 SV09, CES and ICCE Conferences (2009)

History of Flash Memory, 1988-1997 (2008)

History of Flash Memory, 1998-2008 (2008)

Methusaleh Remembers (2008, after a talk to a Library of Congress group)

Storing Your Life (2008 Distinguished Lecture for IEEE CE Society)

Highlights of 2008 CES and ICCE Conference (2008)

Home and Small Business Data Protection (2007)

Tom Coughlin’s PhD Thesis (2007)

The Perfect Storm (2007)

Is there Room for Everyone? (2007)

Data Sanitization Tutorial (2006)

PMR and Other New Technologies Drive Capital Spending (2006)

A Terabyte in Your Pocket, A Petabyte in Your Home (2006)

What Storage Security will Users Tolerate? (2006)

Oh Data, Where are Thou? (2006)

Putting Portable Storage in Perspective (2005)

Disk Drive Contamination and Defect Sensitivity Trends (2005)

Follow the Yellow Brick Road (2005)

Born to Be Wild (2005)

The Content of Storage (2005)

Data Storage In the Worst of Times (2004)

Disks Shine Bright for Backup Applications (2004)

NEMI Mass Storage Roadmap Executive Summary and Introduction (2004)

Brief n Disk Drive Integration into Consumer Electronics (2004)

The Road to 2 Billion Drives (2004)

Storage Tutorial for Content Creation and Distribution (2004)

A Drive for All Seasons (2004)

Looking for Storage In All the Small Places (2004)

More Ways to Play (2003)

Rumors of my Erasure are Premature (2003)

Adoption of Blades Drives New Requirements for Storage (2003)

A Modest Proposal (2003)

Current Trends in Data Storage Backup and Restoration (2003)

Data Storage for the Digital Content Value Chain (2003)

Secure Erase of Disk Drive Data (2002)

Matching Data Storage to Consumer Applications (2002)

Reflections on Imaging (2002)

Entertainment Storage Market (2002)

Data Storage Trends and Directions (2001)

Reflections on a Aberrant Mirror (2001)

Figures for High Density Hard Disk Drive Trends in the USA (2000)

High Density Hard Disk Drive Trends in the USA (2000)

New Markets for Data Storage Products (2000)