Western Digital Announces Highest Capacity ePMR HDDs, up to 32 TB

[Nomad76]

More than just storage, Western Digital HDDs are key enablers for businesses looking to optimize their infrastructure, lower TCO and future-proof their data strategies. Constantly innovating to meet the needs of our data-driven world, Western Digital (NASDAQ: WDC) today announced that it is now shipping the world's highest capacity UltraSMR HDD with up to 32 TB 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 now shipping the world's highest-capacity ePMR CMR HDD with up to 26 TB for enterprise and channel customers. With the world's first commercially available 11-disk design and field-proven technology, these new drives reinforce Western Digital's commitment to delivering HDD technology that raises the bar on capacity, reliability and innovation.

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.



Western Digital's newest 26 TB CMR and 32 TB 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 first commercially available 11-disk platform along with other design enhancements.

32 TB Ultrastar DC HC690 SMR HDD - Western Digital continues to lead the industry in SMR adoption, driving innovation to deliver superior storage capacity while lowering TCO. Now shipping, Western Digital's Ultrastar DC HC690 UltraSMR HDDs with up to 32 TB capacities support customer goals for cost-effective deep content storage at scale. These new HDDs have up to 257 MiB/s sequential performance and use as little as 5.5 W power idle, making them ideal for warm and cold tiers of data.

26 TB Ultrastar DC HC590 CMR HDD - Now shipping, Western Digital's newest CMR drives are a drop-in replacement for continued capacity growth with a reliable, field-proven technology foundation. This latest generation of drives delivers unbeaten CMR capacity, seamless qualification, easy integration and rapid adoption while maintaining superior dependability and reliability. The Ultrastar DC HC590 26 TB CMR HDD features a sustained transfer rate of up to 288 MiB/s and utilizes as little as 5.6 W power while idle.

Ultrastar Data60, Data102 Hybrid Storage Platforms - The new 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 ideal for modern 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.

26 TB WD Gold SATA HDDs - Specifically designed for system integrators and resellers, new 26 TB WD Gold HDDs are now available in the channel. Leveraging innovations from the Ultrastar HDD technology platform, the WD Gold 26 TB HDD provides a no-compromise storage solution that incorporates our latest innovations to handle heavy, continuous read-write workloads in the toughest of enterprise and commercial system environments. With a five-year limited warranty supporting up to 2.5M hours MTBF (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.

"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, Vice President at 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 of 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."

View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[csendesmark]

The 26TB HC590 is looking good!
Hope WD hits 30+ TB with CMR soon!

 

[HD64G]

Hitachi's tech is being used well there...

 

[ymdhis]

From the price of a 12TB WD Gold, you can comfortably by a brand new 20TB Toshiba or Seagate. WD is really, REALLY behind nowadays.

 

[TumbleGeorge]

The 26TB HC590 is looking good!
Hope WD hits 30+ TB with CMR soon!

Not sure it will happen. The talk I've been following has been that it will probably end up in the 26TB region. But, of course, nothing is final.

 

[csendesmark]

From the price of a 12TB WD Gold, you can comfortably by a brand new 20TB Toshiba or Seagate. WD is really, REALLY behind nowadays.

Behind?
In what? Maybe with prices, tell us you mean the prices

Not sure it will happen. The talk I've been following has been that it will probably end up in the 26TB region. But, of course, nothing is final.

They are improving it, surely can beat 30TB CMR in a couple of years.

 

[Francoporto]

The problem is the price. Imagine you want 1000 films at 80GB so it's 80TB HDD you need.... Enjoy your NAS 3k€ HDD price :s

 

[TumbleGeorge]

They are improving it, surely can beat 30TB CMR in a couple of years

Theoretical is possible, in practice only if it is profitable.

 

[ymdhis]

Behind?
In what? Maybe with prices, tell us you mean the prices

Have you even read my post? I was specifically mentioning they were behind in prices. Up to 40%, which is a hell of a lot. Toshiba and Seagate both have HAMR/MAMR tech out on the field already, hence their advantage. WD is still relying on CMR/SMR (edit: they only just started shipping ePMR drives two months ago). They are struggling to keep up in drive sizes but they do that by cramming 11th platters into the drives and using SMR which is a death sentence for arrays.

I've been using WD drives for the past 15 years but between the clicky noises in the Ultrastars and all the shady marketing bullshit they pulled (Red vs Red Plus), I don't see a reason to still buy their drives.

 

[csendesmark]

@ymdhis I did
WD were always more pricy since I in IT, also WD is one of the biggest company in the business, while they creating the most reliable drives on the market (WD Gold and especially the HGST Ultrastar line).
Backblaze Releases 2023 Hard Drive Reliability Stats for 35 Models
You can see that the Seagate drives are considerably less reliable in average.

If you ask me, not the other HDD producers are the biggest risk to them:

Personally I don't really care about the underlying technology unless it is compromises my use case (like SMR).
Ccheck the market: I only see 24TB units WD and Seagate... maybe wasn't looking on the right places.
Only checked one local here, NewEgg and B&H.

Of course you could call me a fanboy, I only have WD Gold 10GB and HGST 16GB + 22GB drives.
But I would be happy to buy Toshiba or Seagate drives when they offer the same.

 

[Solaris17]

You can see that the Seagate drives are considerably less reliable in average.

I see that they have way more disks in production than the others on average.

 

[Visible Noise]

I see that they have way more disks in production than the others on average.

6% is way more?

 

[Solaris17]

6% is way more?

if you're measuring in thousands and then trying to argue to a bunch of nerds that cling to single HDD purchases like clutching pearls, yeah.

To be clear I actually run all 3 in production, Seagate, HGST and Toshiba. I dont care either way. Specifically for dense storage, I also happened to have extensive experience in storage specifically.

Im not saying any of them are better than the other, but if your going to attempt to argue statistics, put in the work and do it properly.

 

[Dr. Dro]

I agree, every Seagate HDD I have ever owned has died. Every. Single. One. 100% failure rate. But I also realize this is very much a me thing. I've been equally lucky with WD's. Samsung's early 2010's drives have also treated me well, both of the Spinpoint F3 drives I have still work

 

[csendesmark]

I see that they have way more disks in production than the others on average.

See the AFR (average failure rate?) column, when it has larger number of production units:

You can see none of the WD-s got failure rate over 2% except one of the 8TB model
See the most used 16 TB WD which also got the lowest failure rate of 0.3%, they lost 47 of 21607.
These really great production numbers are not meaningless in my case.
So I would bet on WD or Toshiba on this, but only one thing is certain:
Every disk going to fail at some point, but a sane person would choose the one with the less hassle.

 

[Solaris17]

See the AFR (average failure rate?) column, when it has larger number of production units:
View attachment 367736
You can see none of the WD-s got failure rate over 2% except one of the 8TB model
See the most used 16 TB WD which also got the lowest failure rate of 0.3%, they lost 47 of 21607.
These really great production numbers are not meaningless in my case.
So I would bet on WD or Toshiba on this, but only one thing is certain:
Every disk going to fail at some point, but a sane person would choose the one with the less hassle.

Thanks for actually doing the reading.

 

[Bagerklestyne]

I'm impressed to hear 11 platters now. I thought it might stagnate at 10 for a markedly longer time. Relying on areal density through tech evolution (HAMR etc)

I want 30-32TB drives before I do a storage update/replace in my NAS.

 

[csendesmark]

Thanks for actually doing the reading.

I following trends at Backblaze for some time, the numbers aren't change that much over a semi-annual rate

 

[chrcoluk]

Things are bad when 5.6w idle power is marketed as a good thing. Mind you enterprise drives have always been power hogs.

 

[efikkan]

It's a small step, but really small;
CMR: 24 TB -> 26 TB (+8%)
SMR: 28 TB -> 32 TB (+14%)

The 26TB HC590 is looking good!
Hope WD hits 30+ TB with CMR soon!

If you don't need SAS or the other minor differences, WD Gold is just as reliable and usually a little cheaper.

From the price of a 12TB WD Gold, you can comfortably by a brand new 20TB Toshiba or Seagate. WD is really, REALLY behind nowadays.

Are you talking about your local prices? For what I can see from comparable models they are pretty much in the same ballpark: (US list prices)

WD Gold 16 TB $350
WD Gold 18 TB $380
WD Gold 22 TB $460
WD Gold 24 TB $660
WD Gold 26 TB $715

Seagate Exos X24 16TB $320
Seagate Exos X24 20TB $497
Seagate Exos X24 24TB $600

I couldn't find prices for Toshiba's new CMR series MG11 yet, the older MG10:
Toshiba MG10 20 TB $355

 

[csendesmark]

WD Gold is just as reliable and usually a little cheaper.

I did check the prices closely for 2 weeks before my order,
Here in Hungary the HGST was cheaper by a lot.
I am generally happy with either