SDT 2026 (Storage Days Tallinn) Agenda
Day 1 – Monday, 31 August
| Time | Session | Speaker | Format |
|---|---|---|---|
| 08:45 | Registration & welcome coffee | Networking | |
| 09:15 | Welcome & framing | Leil | Plenary |
| 09:30 | A Toshiba Perspective on HDD Capacity, Innovation and Technology Evolution | Igor Misko, Toshiba | Keynote + Q&A |
| 10:05 | Waking Cold Backup — Running AI & Analytics Directly on Backup Data | Rick Stevens, Bacula Systems | Keynote + Q&A |
| 10:40 | Coffee & Networking | Break | |
| 11:05 | AI & Sovereignty – Panel. Moderated by Linda-Riin Võeras How data & infrastructure sovereignty holds up as AI moves into the physical world | Alain Wilmouth (2CRSi), Marthijs van den Ham (MDCS.AI), Ben Radford (WD), Martin Rungi (Greenergy Data Centres) & TBC | Panel Talk |
| 12:05 | Networking lunch | Break | |
| 13:30 | Filesystems & SMR at scale — Zoned Storage in the Linux Kernel | Christoph Hellwig, Linux Kernel Developer / Consultant | Technical deep-dive |
| 14:30 | Capacity Efficiency at Scale | David Gerstein, Leil CTO | Technical deep-dive |
| 15:15 | Coffee & Networking | Break | |
| 15:40 | Data Growth Meets Physics – The Race to 100TB HDD capacity – The Innovations That Make It Real (New HDD Technology and Features: High Bandwidth Drive, Dual Actuator, Head depopulation & Variable Capacity) | Uwe Kemmer, WD | Technical deep-dive |
| 16:10 | Why Head depopulation matters now | David Gerstein, Leil CTO | Technical deep-dive |
| 16:35 | GRAND UNIFIED FILE INDEX (GUFI) A Global Meta-Base NOT a Lake House | Gary Grider, Los Alamos National Lab | Remote Keynote + Q&A |
| 17:20 | Day 1 close | Leil | Plenary |
| 18:00 | Welcome dinner & informal fireside | All delegates | Networking |
Day 2 – Tuesday, 1 September
| Time | Session | Speaker | Format |
|---|---|---|---|
| 09:00 | Arrival coffee | Networking | |
| 9:30 | Day 2 welcome & Recap | Leil | Plenary |
| 9:45 | Revisiting 3 topics for storage (HDD): bathtub curve, AI traces, and Erasure Coding | Babar Khan, Researcher / PhD Candidate | Remote Keynote + Q&A |
| 10:30 | Every Terabyte Is a Watt – Energy arithmetic for AI-scale storage | Alain Wilmouth, 2CRSI | Keynote + Q&A |
| 11:20 | Coffee & networking | Break | |
| 11:45 | OpenCloud Hyperscale EFSS. Wins and Fails the last 18 months | Peer Heinlein, OpenCloud | Keynote + Q&A |
| 12:20 | The Disk Is Not the Truth: Forensics in the Capacity Era | Pavel Chikul, Trumo | Technical deep-dive |
| 13:00 | Closing remarks – the road ahead | Leil | Plenary |
| 13:15 | Farewell lunch | Networking |