Cool tech. The drive manufacturers are essentially marching to the drum detailed in this paper from 2016: https://research.google/pubs/disks-for-data-centers/. Multi actuators are part of it but also higher density and better tail latency.
I run a company that provides Minecraft server hosting for businesses (i.e. after school programs, summer camps, Code Ninjas, E-Sports leagues etc) and produces fun and educational events using Minecraft (i.e. 10-15 elementary school kids in an event space at a library learning physics by building roller coasters in the game).
We've switched entirely over to Paper for everything because it works so much better than vanilla, and it also enables us to put it behind a Velocity proxy (Minecraft Java Application layer proxy also developed by the same group that develops Paper) for better scalability, more secure infrastructure, and some cool features like enabling any version of Java edition to join the same server (mad props to the ViaVersion & ViaBackwards plugin teams that make this possible!). This is impossible to do with Vanilla. We do all of our own content development creating the activities the kids do during the events, and the plugin ecosystem that someone else mentioned is hugely helpful for this. I especially want to call out how awesome the Geyser and Floodgate plugins are — they make it possible for Java and Bedrock clients to play together in the same world, which makes our customers lives so much easier.
We're hiring part time / contract developers, event hosts, and technical support personnel. If this sounds interesting, please reach out. My contact info is in my profile.
Tech stack: Frontend is a mix of hand-crafted HTML and pages or fragments of components designed in Webflow. (This is my first meaningful webapp, so don't judge!) Using Firebase Auth for authentication, Stripe for billing, Firestore for the database. The frontend talks to a custom API server written in Golang. It's purpose is to essentially orchestrate customized VMs. Each VM runs a Minecraft server mgmt sidecar process (also written in Golang), which orchestrates the MC server itself. Each VM is entirely self contained, the API server pushes config into into VM metadata. The the sidecar listens for changes and applies them. There is some interesting logic there to determine what game settings can be applied without restarting the server and which can't be.
Overall architecture is pretty straightforward, but it's grown organically and it's a mix of crufty bits, along with nicer bits which came later. It currently supports four server types (Java, Bedrock, Spigot, Forge), and I'm in process of adding Paper. Each time I add a server I learn more and figure out a bit better design. Adding Paper is mostly replacing the original Java and Bedrock cruft with better stuff I created while adding Spigot and Forge. Beyond the Sidecar, Most of the magic is in the frontend making it easy for parents to manage invited players, gameplay (including plugins/mods/minigames), and playtimes.
Happy to dive in more detail 1:1 or small group, my contact info is in my profile.
I built and run a Minecraft server hosting service for parents to enable young kids to play online safely and with less hassle (https://minecraft-playdates.com). Been slowly growing it while adding features, and it's bringing in about $150/mo now. Potential for much more if I were focused on it.