WW Record HDD Capacity of 32TB
For 11-disk UltraSMR device from WD matching Seagate and Toshiba
This is a Press Release edited by StorageNewsletter.com on October 18, 2024 at 2:02 pm
Western Digital Corp. is shipping the world’s highest capacity UltraSMR HDD with up to 32TB (1) leveraging the time-tested, reliable energy-assisted PMR (ePMR) recording technology for hyperscalers, CSPs and enterprises. For those who want a drop-in ready HDD for today’s data-intensive workloads, the company is also shipping the world’s highest-capacity ePMR CMR HDD with up to 26TB for enterprise and channel customers. With the world’s 1st commercially available 11-disk design and field-proven technology, these drives reinforce the firm‘s commitment to delivering HDD technology that raises the bar on capacity, reliability and innovation.
11-disk design
The AI Data Cycle has emerged as a growth driver for the storage industry. As AI systems become more sophisticated, they process and generate vast amounts of data that must be stored efficiently. HDDs play a crucial role in this ecosystem, handling both the input side, where data is gathered, ingested and stored, and the output side, where AI content is generated and preserved. This dual role positions HDDs as a linchpin in the AI Data Cycle, ensuring that data is available when needed and stored with the lowest TCO.
The company’s 26TB CMR and 32TB UltraSMR drives utilize multiple technological innovations to enable data centers to maximize their storage efficiency. In addition to ePMR, OptiNAND, ArmorCache and a triple-stage actuator (TSA), the drives feature the world’s 1st commercially available 11-disk platform along with other design enhancements. Read: Innovating to 11: Western Digital Increases HDD Capacity, Not Size. (see below)
32TB Ultrastar DC HC690 SMR HDD
The company continues to lead the industry in SMR adoption, driving innovation to deliver superior storage capacity while lowering TCO. Shipping, Ultrastar DC HC690 UltraSMR HDDs with up to 32TB capacities support customer goals for cost-effective deep content storage at scale. These HDDs have up to 257MB/s sequential performance and use as little as 5.5W power idle, making them for warm and cold tiers of data.
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26TB Ultrastar DC HC590 CMR HDD 
Shipping, these firm’s CMR drives are a drop-in replacement for continued capacity growth with a reliable, field-proven technology foundation. This latest-gen of drives delivers unbeaten CMR capacity, qualification, easy integration and rapid adoption while maintaining superior dependability and reliability. The Ultrastar DC HC590 26TB CMR HDD features a sustained transfer rate of up to 288MB/s and utilizes as little as 5.6W power while idle.
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Ultrastar Data60, Data102 hybrid storage platforms
Ultrastar Data60 JBOD
The Ultrastar HDDs are being qualified and integrated into the company’s Ultrastar Data60 and Data102 JBOD hybrid storage platforms, which are high-density, scalable storage solutions that are for data centers, private clouds, and big data analytics. These platforms provide flexible configurations, accommodating up to 60 or 102 HDDs, and can deliver up to 3.26PB of raw capacity. Key technologies like IsoVibe and ArcticFlow ensure reduced vibration and optimized cooling, resulting in better performance and reliability. Availability will begin by year-end.
26TB WD Gold SATA HDDs 
Specifically designed for system integrators and resellers, the 26TB WD Gold HDDs are available in the channel. Leveraging innovations from the Ultrastar HDD technology platform, the WD Gold 26TB HDD provides a no-compromise storage solution that incorporates our latest innovations to handle heavy, continuous RW workloads in the toughest of enterprise and commercial system environments. With a 5-year limited warranty (2) supporting up to 2.5 million hours MTBF (3) (projected), WD Gold drives provide the utmost in storage performance, reliability, durability and flexible capacity for small and medium businesses and design professionals whose mission-critical data and creative output are essential to their success.
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“With the rise of AI, edge computing, and large-scale data centers, HDDs play a critical role in delivering huge capacity, performance and low power, making them indispensable for enterprises that want the highest storage density with the lowest TCO,” said John Chen, VP, Trendfocus. “With the addition of the new 11-disk platform, Western Digital is well-positioned to continue to drive key HDD use cases – optimizing virtually all users in all markets for success in today’s data-intensive landscape.”
“Our CMR and UltraSMR technology isn’t just breaking records—it’s giving customers the efficiency and TCO benefits they’ve been asking for, and we’re not done yet,” said Ravi Pendekanti, SVP, product management, HDD business unit, Western Digital. “By delivering the industry’s highest ePMR capacities available today, we are ensuring that our customers have the storage efficiency, scalability, reliability and unmatched value they need to stay ahead.”
Resources:
Blog : Innovating to 11: Western Digital Increases HDD Capacity, Not Size
Tech brief : Continuous Innovation for Highest Capacities and Lower TCO
(1) 1GB is equal to one billion bytes, 1TB is equal to one trillion bytes, and 1 PB is equal to 1 quadrillion bytes. Actual user capacity may be less due to operating environment.
(2) See https://support.wdc.com/warranty/ for regional specific warranty details.
(3) Final MTBF and AFR specifications will be based on a sample population and are estimated by statistical measurements and acceleration algorithms under typical operating conditions, typical workload and 40°C device-reported temperature. Derating of MTBF and AFR will occur above these parameters, up to 550TB/year and 60°C (device reported temperature). MTBF and AFR ratings do not predict an individual drive’s reliability and do not constitute a warranty.
Comments
Here is the comment of Trendfocus, Inc. on the subject.
Western Digital Lifts ePMR to 26TB CMR, 32TB SMR
11-disk ePMR HDD offered in HC690/HC590 data center and WD Gold models
PMR is fast approaching 20 years since it was first introduced. As areal density gains have slowed with the maturation of the PMR over that time, the industry has turned to innovative HDD designs, implementing additional technologies to achieve higher drive capacities. A key enabler has been the use of helium-sealed HDDs, pioneered by HGST (now Western Digital) 10 years ago, allowing the use of thinner disks and the elimination of disk spoilers, or anti-disks, which provided space to add additional platters into each HDD. Starting with a 7-platter 6TB HDD back in 2014, helium platforms from all 3 HDD companies have increased to 10-disk designs in recent years.
Over the past several years, Western Digital has also employed an enhanced PMR writer, key to its ePMR technology and an outcome of its earlier work in MAMR or microwave-assisted magnetic recording. In addition, the company was at the forefront of host-managed SMR development in which written tracks are overlapped to increase areal density on the disk. The company also developed what it calls UltraSMR which includes its OptiNAND flash cache. According to Western Digital's SVP of technical engineering, Carl Che, UltraSMR incorporates more robust ECC algorithms enabling SMR drives to achieve significantly more capacity than the roughly 10% gain from standard track overlap schemes initially deployed in SMR drives. Enhanced signal processing in the Ultra SMR architecture provides benefits not just to TPI but also BPI, resulting in the company's latest UltraSMR drives achieving a 20%+ capacity gain over conventional magnetic recording, also known as CMR.
Today, Western Digital is announcing a new gen of capacity enterprise, or nearline, HDDs that lifts per-drive platter counts to 11 disks. At a 26TB CMR capacity, its host-managed SMR counterpart tops out at 32TB. According to the company's product spec sheets, sustained transfer rates of up to 257MB/s are supported on the 32TB Ultrastar DCHC690 SMR
HDD and up to 288MB/s for the 26 TB Ultrastar HC590 CMR HDD.
The SMR and CMR Ultrastar HDDs are also available in 30TB and 24TB capacities, respectively. Read/write operating power remains low at 8.4W for the 26TB CMR SATA HDD due to the helium-sealed HDD architecture and despite the addition of the 11th disk. A 26TB WD Gold SATA HDD is also currently shipping in the channel for resellers and system integrators. All HDD models are covered by a 5-year warranty and support up to a projected MTBF of 2.5 million hours.
Based on Trendfocus checks, major cloud qualifications of these latest nearline HDDs are targeted for 1H25. With the current delays in Seagate's HAMR qualifications, Western Digital's 32TB SMR HDDs will rival HAMR's initial launch capacities at least for those customers that have enabled host-managed SMR. For customers that have yet to qualify HAMR and SMR by that time, Western Digital's 26TB CMR HDD will lead the market compared to others that will be shipping or ramping PMR designs at 24TB capacities.
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