Western Digital is extending its HDD technology and capacity leadership into its broader portfolio of data center solutions. Leveraging innovations from the Ultrastar 18TB and 20TB HDD technology platform, the WD Gold family now features new 16TB and 18TB CMR HDD capacities.
Also available are an upgraded line of Ultrastar JBOD platforms and an Ultrastar hybrid storage server featuring Ultrastar 16TB and 18TB CMR HDDs. Through Western Digital’s vertical integration capabilities and broad portfolio, the company continues to be uniquely positioned to help customers meet data demands as they design their storage infrastructures for better efficiency and productivity.
Announced in September 2019 and currently shipping, the 20TB Ultrastar DC HC650 host-managed SMR HDDs and 16TB and 18TB Ultrastar DC HC550 CMR HDDs are the industry’s first commercial implementation of EAMR technology. Together with Western Digital’s HelioSeal design for outstanding power efficiency, and mechanical innovations such as the industry’s first TSA to enhance head-positioning accuracy and deliver greater capacity capabilities, these drives deliver leading areal density. These nine-disk drives also enable customers to more efficiently provision and scale their data center environments with unmatched TCO value.
Following the recent availability of WD Gold NVMe SSDs, Western Digital has again expanded its WD Gold family of drives for channel customers to include 16TB and 18TB CMR HDD models. Available now and featuring a five-year limited warranty, the new WD Gold CMR HDDs are specifically designed for use in enterprise-class server and storage systems and are purpose-built for heavy workloads and a broad array of big data applications.
With up to 2.5M hours MTBF, WD Gold HDDs deliver enhanced levels of dependability and durability, as well as vibration protection technology for improved, consistent performance. WD Gold HDDs are designed to handle workloads up to 550TB per year, which is among the highest of any 3.5-inch hard drive. The new WD Gold drives also feature Western Digital’s HelioSeal technology that enables high capacities with a low power draw.
Also announced today are Western Digital’s Ultrastar Data60 and Data102 JBODs, and Serv60+8 storage server that have been upgraded to leverage the company’s enterprise-class 16TB and 18TB Ultrastar DC HC550 CMR HDDs. With up to 1.836PB in a 4U, these new platforms are available now and come with a five-year limited warranty. Ultrastar platforms with upgrades to Ultrastar DC HC650 20TB SMR HDDs are expected to follow next quarter.
The Ultrastar Data60 and Data102 are key elements of next-generation disaggregated storage and SDS infrastructure. The Ultrastar Serv60+8 is a high-capacity hybrid storage server with compute included. These Ultrastar platforms address the demanding needs of large enterprise customers, OEMs, cloud service providers, and integrators that require dense, shared HDD or hybrid storage. The Data60 and Data102 provide the flexibility to specify the HDD and SSD combinations with up to 24 drive slots configured with SSDs, while the Serv60+8 offers a choice of CPUs, memory and drives. All of this enables organizations to balance capacity, performance and cost.
“Cloud service providers and systems integrators today have one thing in common: they all require a multi-tiered storage strategy, leveraging multiple technologies to manage the explosion of valuable data and breadth of workloads. Unlike any other vendor in the space, Western Digital develops, manufacturers and markets NAND, SSDs, HDDs and platforms,” said Yusuf Jamal, senior vice president of Western Digital’s Devices and Platforms Business. “The depth and breadth of our data center portfolio enable us to deliver the right innovations at the right time to help all of our data center customers—from hyperscale cloud customers to enterprises and SMBs—solve their most important data infrastructure challenges.”
