Western Digital Begins Volume Shipments of 24TB CMR HDDs; Industry Adoption of SMR Strengthens as 28TB SMR HDD Ramps - Seite 2

“New and existing endpoints from industries, connected devices, digital platforms, AI innovations, autonomous machines and more create a staggering amount of data each day. This relentless creation of data ultimately finds its way to the cloud, which is underpinned by our continued advancements in HDDs,” said Ashley Gorakhpurwalla, EVP and GM, HDD Business Unit, Western Digital. “As a strategic partner to cloud and data center customers around the world, we are extending the value of our proven HDD platform and technology innovations to deliver the highest capacity HDD storage and TCO value that our customers demand.”

28TB Ultrastar DC HC680 SMR HDD

Western Digital is driving the next big shift in cloud data center with SMR HDDs. At 28TB, the new Ultrastar DC HC680 SMR HDD provides the utmost in storage density for hyperscale, cloud and enterprise customers. Designed for sequential write workloads where storage density, watt/TB and $/TB are critical parameters, it targets environments such as bulk storage, online backup and archive, video surveillance, cloud storage, storage for regulatory compliance, big data storage, and other applications where data may be infrequently accessed. For the growing list of customers who have optimized their stacks to take advantage of the benefits of SMR, these drives enable continued time-to-market advantage of integrating the highest capacity HDDs on the market and scaling their product offerings in a lower-power footprint.

24TB Ultrastar DC HC580 CMR HDD

Continuing to deliver innovation at scale, the Ultrastar DC HC580 24TB CMR HDD with improved OptiNAND technology is the next leap in data density, allowing data center customers to maximize their storage within the same footprint, and in power-constrained environments. For better storage density, the HC580 can enable up to 612TB¹ of raw storage per rack unit in a 4U 102-drive bay solution. These drives are also more power efficient, providing 12% less Watt/TB² compared to the company’s previous 22TB version.

The Ultrastar DC HC680 and HC580 HDDs are currently being qualified by select hyperscalers, CSPs and OEM customers, and are now available for large enterprise customers looking for the highest capacity with lower power per terabyte for designing more efficient storage systems and data centers.

Ultrastar DC HC680 and HC580 SAS HDD versions will be available in CYQ1’24 (FYQ3’24).

Ultrastar Data60 and Data102 Hybrid Storage Platforms

The new Ultrastar drives are also being qualified and integrated into the company’s Ultrastar Data60 and Data102 JBOD hybrid storage platforms, which are key building blocks for designing next-generation disaggregated storage and software-defined storage (SDS) infrastructure. Each storage platform comes with unique IsoVibe and ArcticFlow technologies for improved performance and reliability. Ultrastar Data60 and Data102 platforms with the new HDDs will be available beginning next month.