Western Digital Began Shipping 12TB Helium HDD

Western Digital Corp. has begun shipping its fourth-generation helium-based HDD with its 12TB HGST-branded Ultrastar He12 HDD.

The drive is the next generation of the company’s high capacity enterprise drive with HelioSeal technology, providing customers with a storage solution addressing the expansive information management needs and demanding performance requirements of today’s enterprise, cloud and hyperscale workloads.

Ultrastar He12 Helium HDD
The enterprise HDD features an industry-first eight-disk design, to deliver 12TB capacity using PMR technology in a 3.5-inch form factor.

It is the world’s highest capacity HDD drive for active random workloads. Utilizing Western Digital’s HelioSeal process that seals helium in the drive to help provide the highest capacity HDD and power efficiency, the Ultrastar He12 HDD comes in a single 12TB capacity point and offers either a SATA or SAS interface both using Advanced Format.

HelioSeal technology utilizes helium with 1/7 the density of air, enabling the use of thinner disks, while maintaining a stable recording interface. The design adds an eighth disk, two more than the highest capacity air-based enterprise drive, which enabled the capacity increase to 12TB, 50% more than the highest air-based enterprise drive.

This additional capacity provides for increased storage density, reducing associated data center infrastructure required to store a given amount of data. It also encompasses a low-power design without compromising performance, which helps reduce overall cost of ownership. The Ultrastar He12 HDD is for any application that requires massive amounts of cost-effective storage.

Specs:
   •   HelioSeal: Western Digital’s fourth generation, based on HelioSeal technology, bringing the highest capacity HDD to market sooner than competing technologies
   •   World’s first 8-disk design: 12TB capacity, available with either 12Gb SAS or 6Gb SATA interface
   •   Data Security: Instant Secure Erase, sanitize and safely redeploy HDDs using the Instant Secure Erase feature
   •   SED Features: Help protect end user data with encryption (Self Encrypting Drive)
   •   Reliability: Among the industry’s highest MTBF rating at 2.5 million hours

The Ultrastar He12 HDD is currently shipping to distribution and comes with a 5-year limited warranty.

Specs