Western Digital is launching a behemoth, consumer-oriented 4 TB SSD based on its WD Blue product line. The WD Blue 4 TB uses the SATA interface (for which controllers are still slightly cheaper than for NVMe solutions) with a Marvell 88SS1074 4-channel controller with a 64-layer 3D TLC NAND from SanDisk. Read and write speeds are basically SATA III-bound (sequential 560MB/s read and 530MB/s write speeds, with random 4K read/write of 95K/82K IOPS.)

The WD Blue 4TB SATA SSD has its official availability date on May 13th, but it's already popping up here and there around retailers' shops in Europe. The 4 TB SSD is being priced at €545, which seems to be inline with expectations for such a capacity level. Quick napkin math saying that these should find a home at the sub-$500 level is very likely accurate, considering past pricing practices from manufacturers between the European and US markets.

Western Digital Corp. today unveiled the new Western Digital WD Purple SC QD312 Extreme Endurance microSD card for designers and manufacturers of AI-enabled security cameras, smart video surveillance and advanced edge devices that capture and store video at higher bit rates than mainstream cameras. According to IHS Markit, global shipments of professional video surveillance cameras are expected to grow from 127 million to over 200 million between 2017 and 2022, and those with on-board storage are expected to grow by an average of approximately 19 percent per year.

With the migration to 4K and higher video resolutions, and the introduction of more smart cameras with built-in AI and improved local processing capabilities, surveillance cameras need to be able to store both video and raw data to facilitate these AI capabilities. As a result, storage with higher capacity, more intelligence and greater durability is increasingly required.

Western Digital Corp., a global data infrastructure leader, is accelerating the NVMe transition of value-PC storage by adding an NVMe model to its award-winning WD Blue solid state drive (SSD) portfolio, the WD Blue SN500 NVMe SSD. The new SSD delivers three times the performance of its SATA counterpart while maintaining the reliability the WD Blue product line is known for. For content creators and PC enthusiasts, the WD Blue SN500 NVMe SSD is optimized for multitasking and resource-heavy applications, providing near-instant access to files and programs.

Leveraging the scalable in-house SSD architecture of the highly acclaimed WD Black SN750 NVMe SSD, the new WD Blue SN500 NVMe SSD is also built on Western Digital's own 3D NAND technology, firmware and controller, and delivers sequential read and write speeds up to 1,700 MB/s and 1,450 MB/s respectively (for 500 GB model) with efficient power consumption as low as 2.7W. Demands on storage are continuing to grow and client workloads are evolving, the WD Blue SN500 NVMe SSD features high sustained write performance over SATA as well as other emerging technologies on the market today to give that performance edge.

Toshiba and its strategic ally Western Digital are readying a high-density 128-layer 3D NAND flash memory. In Toshiba's nomenclature, the chip will be named BiCS-5. Interestingly, despite the spatial density, the chip will implement TLC (3 bits per cell), and not the newer QLC (4 bits per cell). This is probably because NAND flash makers are still spooked about the low yields of QLC chips. Regardless, the chip has a data density of 512 Gb. With 33% more capacity than 96-layer chips, the new 128-layer chips could hit commercial production in 2020-21.

The BiCS-5 chip reportedly features a 4-plane design. Its die is divided into four sections, or planes, which can each be independently accessed; as opposed to BiCS-4 chips that use a 2-plane layout. This reportedly doubles the write performance per unit-channel to 132 MB/s from 66 MB/s. The die also reportedly uses CuA (circuitry under array), a design innovation in which logic circuitry is located in the bottom-most "layer," with data layers stacked above, resulting in 15 percent die-size savings. Aaron Rakers, a high-technology industry market analyst with Wells Fargo, estimates that Toshiba-WD's yields per 300 mm wafer could be as high as 85 percent.

Western Digital Corp. today announced two new additions to its broad portfolio of NVMe-based systems, platforms, SSDs, and memory drives for data center and cloud customers. With a full portfolio covering applications from edge-to-core, these additions are the Western Digital Ultrastar DC SN630 NVMe SSD and the Western Digital CL SN720 NVMe SSD. Each leverages the power of Western Digital's vertical integration capabilities, including internally developed controller and firmware architectures, and 64-layer 3D NAND technology. As a replacement for lower-performing SATA SSDs, these new NVMe drives meet the insatiable need for performance, scalability, endurance and low total cost of ownership (TCO) for public and private cloud deployments, hyperscale cloud environments, and next-generation workloads at the edge.

IT managers face challenges such as managing multiple workload types, scaling at optimal TCO, and controlling server sprawl. Due to its inherent scalability and performance benefits, NVMe is quickly becoming the de facto standard for everything from traditional scale-up database applications to emerging edge computing architectures.

As consumer demand for high-quality content continues to rise, Western Digital Corp. is enabling a bigger, faster experience with new industry-leading solutions that give consumers the best combination of performance and capacity so they can do more with the rich content they capture. At Mobile World Congress, the company is showcasing the world's fastest 1TB UHS-I microSD flash memory card, the 1TB SanDisk Extreme UHS-I microSDXC card. The new card features higher speed and capacity for capturing and moving massive amounts of high-quality photos and videos on smartphones, drones and action cameras. These impressive levels of capacity and speed give consumers the ability to create all the content they want without worrying about space limitations or long transfer times.

Today's smartphones and cameras allow consumers to create high-quality content in the palm of their hands, thanks to features like multi-lenses, burst mode capabilities and the 4K resolution. Western Digital continues to deliver the most advanced solutions to ensure consumers can reliably capture and share a special moment or create video content for personal or professional use.

Western Digital over the weekend refreshed its high-end client-segment SSD lineup with the WD Black SN750. Built in the M.2-2280 form-factor with PCI-Express 3.0 x4 interface and support for the NVMe 1.3 protocol, the drive combines a refreshed in-house developed controller with SanDisk-made 64-layer 3D TLC NAND flash memory, cushioned by up to 2 GB of DRAM cache. The biggest change this drive offers over last Summer's WD Black 3D series, however, is the optional aluminium heatsink originally made by EK Waterblocks, which improves the drive's thermals and possibly sustained performance. You can opt to buy the drive without this heatsink.

Available in capacities of 250 GB for $80, 500 GB for $130, 1 TB for $250, and 2 TB for $500, the WD Black SN750 offers sequential transfer rates of up to 3470 MB/s reads on the 500 GB and 1 TB models. The 250 GB model reads at up to 3100 MB/s, and the 2 TB model up to 3400 MB/s. Sequential write speeds, too, are improved across the board, with up to 3000 MB/s for the 1 TB model, up to 2900 MB/s for the 2 TB model, up to 2600 MB/s for the 500 GB model, and up to 1600 MB/s for the 250 GB model. 4K random-access numbers can be as high as 515,000 IOPS reads. All models are backed by 5-year product warranties.

Western Digital Corp. today announced at the RISC-V Summit three new open-source innovations designed to support Western Digital's internal RISC-V development efforts and those of the growing RISC-V ecosystem. In his keynote address, Western Digital's Chief Technology Officer Martin Fink unveiled plans to release a new open source RISC-V core, an open standard initiative for cache coherent memory over a network and an open source RISC-V instruction set simulator.

These innovations are expected to accelerate development of new open, purpose-built compute architectures for Big Data and Fast Data environments. Western Digital has taken an active role in helping to advance the RISC-V ecosystem, including multiple related strategic investments and partnerships, and demonstrated progress toward its stated goal of transitioning one billion of the company's processor cores to the RISC-V architecture.

Western Digital Corporation, a data infrastructure leader, today announced it is extending the breadth and depth of its data center portfolio into the rapidly evolving in-memory computing market segment. The new Ultrastar DC ME200 Memory Extension Drive is the company's first product that enables customers to better optimize in-memory system capacity/performance for running demanding applications that drive today's real-time analytics and business insights.

"Today's requirement for faster analytics, data processing, cloud services and high-performance computing (HPC) is increasing demand for in-memory computing across a variety of industries, including healthcare, telecommunications and IT, and retail," said Ashish Nadkarni, group vice president, IDC. "By expanding in-memory capacity, the Ultrastar memory drive helps alleviate the high cost of adding extra DRAM, as well as addresses the physical limitations of available DIMM slots, where scaling is either cost-prohibitive or nearly impossible."

Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ: WDC) today reported revenue of $5.0 billion for its first fiscal quarter ended Sept. 28, 2018. Operating income was $686 million with net income of $511 million, or $1.71 per share. Excluding certain non-GAAP adjustments, the company achieved non-GAAP operating income of $1.1 billion and non-GAAP net income of $906 million, or $3.04 per share.

In the year-ago quarter, the company reported revenue of $5.2 billion, operating income of $905 million and net income of $681 million, or $2.23 per share. Non-GAAP operating income in the year-ago quarter was $1.4 billion and non-GAAP net income was $1.1 billion, or $3.56 per share.

The company generated $705 million in cash from operations during the first fiscal quarter of 2019, ending with $4.8 billion of total cash, cash equivalents and available-for-sale securities. The company returned $711 million to shareholders through share repurchases and dividends. On Aug. 1, 2018, the company declared a cash dividend of $0.50 per share of its common stock, which was paid to shareholders on Oct. 15, 2018.

Solid-state drives are cheaper than ever, thanks to systematic decline in NAND flash prices owing both to oversupply and increases in densities. NAND flash prices have already declined by 50 percent over 2018, according to a DigiTimes report, and will continue to slide through 2019. ADATA chairman Simon Chen commented that NAND flash makers haven't slowed down capacity expansions, and 2019 could witness an even bigger drop in prices than 2018.

Major NAND flash makers such as IMFlash Technology, SK Hynix, Samsung, Western Digital, Toshiba, have already taped out their 96-layer 3D NAND flash products, which could enter volume production in the first half of 2019. This could impact prices of existing swelling inventories of products based on 64-layer NAND flash. In theory, the 96-layer chips introduce 50 percent increases in densities. Adoption of newer technologies such as QLC (4 bits per cell) will expand densities even further. The same report also projects that DRAM prices could largely remain flat throughout 2019. Most NAND flash makers also happen to make DRAM, and could balance their NAND flash losses with DRAM profits.

Showcasing its continued strength and leadership in enterprise-capacity storage solutions, Western Digital today announced the industry's highest capacity HDD, the 15 TB Ultrastar DC HC620 host-managed SMR HDD. The Ultrastar DC HC620 delivers an unprecedented capacity point with a time-to-market advantage for customers who have invested in, and continue to take advantage of the benefits of SMR.

"With data continuing to grow at unprecedented rates, many hyperscale and cloud storage customers know that their workloads trend toward data that is written sequentially. In these instances, customers are optimizing their infrastructures with the lowest TCO and the maximum capacity," said Eyal Bek, vice president of product marketing, Western Digital. "By capitalizing on our highest-capacity SMR storage solutions, our customers' investment can not only be fully leveraged today, but for subsequent generations of SMR areal density improvements for continued infrastructure optimization."

Western Digital Corp. today expanded its portfolio of data storage devices purpose-built for the modern surveillance market, introducing three new offerings: the industry's first industrial-grade 3D NAND UFS embedded flash drive (EFD) for surveillance; an expanded WD Purple microSD card series to support up to 256 GB capacity; and Western Digital Device Analytics, the new device analytics technology enabling OEMs and system integrators to proactively manage their storage subsystems and maintain optimal operation.

The new devices and tools address the complex and dynamic data demands of a surveillance market in transformation, supporting the high performance, capacity and endurance required by networked and artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled camera systems, as well as other smart video devices operating at the edge.

"As the adoption of higher resolution and AI-enabled cameras expands, and traditional centralized surveillance video systems become more distributed, fast and reliable storage with higher capacities are essential for enabling surveillance devices to capture, analyze and transform greater amounts of data, locally, and in real-time," said Oded Sagee, senior director, product marketing, Western Digital. "With the new devices and analytics capability introduced today, we are excited to enable the new era of smart video and AI-driven surveillance systems with the industry's most comprehensive offering for surveillance, from the edge to the core."

As of September 30, 2018 Backblaze had 99,636 spinning hard drives. Of that number, there were 1,866 boot drives and 97,770 data drives. This review looks at the quarterly and lifetime statistics for the data drive models in operation in our data centers. In addition, we'll say goodbye to the last of our 3TB drives, hello to our new 12TB HGST drives, and we'll explain how we have 584 fewer drives than last quarter, but have added over 40 petabytes of storage.

Hard Drive Reliability Statistics for Q3 2018
At the end of Q3 2018, Backblaze was monitoring 97,770 hard drives used to store data. For our evaluation, we remove from consideration those drives that were used for testing purposes and those drive models for which we did not have at least 45 drives (see why below). This leaves us with 97,600 hard drives. The table below covers what happened in Q3 2018.

Toshiba Memory Corporation and Western Digital Corporation today celebrated the opening of a new state-of-the-art semiconductor fabrication facility, Fab 6, and the Memory R&D Center, at Yokkaichi operations in Mie Prefecture, Japan. Toshiba Memory started construction of Fab 6, a dedicated 3D flash memory fabrication facility, in February 2017. Toshiba Memory and Western Digital have installed cutting-edge manufacturing equipment for key production processes including deposition and etching. Mass production of 96-layer 3D flash memory utilizing the new fab began earlier this month.

Demand for 3D flash memory is growing for enterprise servers, data centers and smartphones, and is expected to continue to expand in the years ahead. Further investments to expand its production will be made in line with market trends. The Memory R&D Center, located adjacent to Fab 6, began operations in March of this year, and will explore and promote advances in the development of 3D flash memory. Toshiba Memory and Western Digital will continue to cultivate and extend their leadership in the memory business by actively developing initiatives aimed at strengthening competitiveness, advancing joint development of 3D flash memory, and making capital investments according to market trends.

Toshiba Memory Corporation, the world leader in memory solutions, today held a groundbreaking ceremony for the first semiconductor fabrication facility (fab), called K1, in Kitakami, Iwate prefecture, in northeastern Japan. On its completion in autumn 2019, the facility will be one of the most advanced manufacturing operations in the world, dedicated to production of 3D flash memory.

Toshiba Memory continues to advance technologies in flash memory. The company is now leading the way forward with advances in its BiCS FLASH , its proprietary 3D flash memory.

Western Digital Corporation, a data technology leader, today introduced the new Ultrastar DC SS530 SAS SSD, the company's highest-density drive and the fastest dual-port SAS SSD in the market¹, enabling server and storage array manufacturers to offer customers substantially lower data center TCO for Fast Data applications. By doubling maximum capacity of the previous generation to 15.36TB within the same 2.5-inch 15-mm form factor, drive storage density also doubles, giving IT managers the potential to reduce the number of drives deployed, consolidate servers and open up valuable rack space for improved CapEx and OpEx costs.

Developed in partnership with Intel , the Ultrastar DC SS530 is based on a trusted third-generation platform that has been previously qualified at most major OEMs worldwide. It offers consistent performance and reliability to meet the rigorous demands of today's toughest data center workloads. Designed with a 12Gb/s SAS interface, and available in capacities from 400GB to 15.36TB, the Ultrastar DC SS530 delivers up to 440,000 random read and 320,000 random write IOPS - providing rapid access to "hot" enterprise data for higher productivity and operational efficiency.

Western Digital Corp. today announced successful development of its second-generation, four-bits-per-cell architecture for 3D NAND. Implemented for the company's 96-layer BiCS4 device, the QLC technology delivers the industry's highest 3D NAND storage capacity of 1.33 terabits (Tb) in a single chip. BiCS4 was developed at the joint venture flash manufacturing facility in Yokkaichi, Japan with our partner Toshiba Memory Corporation. It is sampling now and volume shipments are expected to commence this calendar year beginning with consumer products marketed under the SanDisk brand. The company expects to deploy BiCS4 in a wide variety of applications from retail to enterprise SSDs.

Toshiba Memory Corporation, the world leader in memory solutions, today announced that it has developed a prototype sample of 96-layer BiCS FLASH, its proprietary 3D flash memory, with 4-bit-per-cell (quad level cell, QLC) technology that boosts single-chip memory capacity to the highest level yet achieved.Toshiba Memory will start to deliver samples to SSD and SSD controller manufacturers for evaluation from the beginning of September, and expects to start mass production in 2019.

The advantage of QLC technology is pushing the bit count for data per memory cell from three to four and significantly expanding capacity. The new product achieves the industry's maximum capacity of 1.33 terabits for a single chip which was jointly developed with Western Digital Corporation. This also realizes an unparalleled capacity of 2.66 terabytes with a 16-chip stacked architecture in one package. The huge volumes of data generated by mobile terminals and the like continue to increase with the spread of SNS and progress in IoT, and the need to analyze and utilize that data in real time is expected to increase dramatically. That will require even faster than HDD, larger capacity storage and QLC products using the 96-layer process will contribute a solution.

With the advent of solid-state storage in pretty much every device you can think of, demand for mechanical HDDs has gone down, because users prefer fast and compact SSD storage over the mechanical dinosaurs. HDD manufacturers have been trying to stop the inevitable by coming out with new technologies to increase capacity - faster than SSD pricing can drop, but it seems they can't prevent the inevitable.

Now The Register UK reports that Western Digital will close its HDD factory near Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. This is one of the company's first factories, operating since 1973. After the shutdown of the Malaysia plant, WD will be left with only two factories in Thailand, and is now trying to gain more share in the SSD market.

To help enable the surveillance industry's evolution to increasingly higher resolution cameras and new applications requiring real-time edge analytics, Western Digital Corporation has expanded its surveillance portfolio with the introduction of the industry's highest capacity, deep-learning-capable, surveillance-class drive, Western Digital Purple 12TB drive with exclusive AllFrame AI technology. The newest addition to Western Digital's surveillance portfolio creates new possibilities in video surveillance by supporting the capture of multiple high resolution video streams while simultaneously accessing recorded video to support deep learning and analytics. This capability is purpose-built for emerging DVR and NVR systems with Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilities in that it supports real-time detection of AI-triggered events at the point of capture with continuous background learning.

According to IDC, the amount of big data exabytes generated by surveillance solutions is expected to grow by 25 percent per year through 20211. This growth is driven by the installation of more complex cameras with vastly improved resolutions, increasingly intelligent applications and overall expanding use of video for analytics globally. Traditional video surveillance systems detect moving subjects without providing detailed analysis. New systems enable additional functions such as real-time edge analytics to better detect objects and reduce false triggers. Objects such as animals, leaves, and even light can cause false alarms. AI-enabled systems not only detect the moving targets, but can analyze them to help determine if they are a potential threat.

As a leader in enterprise-capacity hard disk drives (HDDs) and the inventor of helium HDD technology, Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ: WDC) today announced that Huawei has qualified its host-managed shingled magnetic recording (SMR) helium-based HDD, the Ultrastar Hs14 - the industry's first 14TB HDD designed for demanding big data applications. An early adopter of Western Digital's SMR HDDs, Huawei is breaking new ground by optimizing its distributed cloud storage OceanStor 9000 system for the sequential nature of data capture in video surveillance applications. Seeing the value in enabling significant TCO improvements, Huawei has made considerable investments in the integration of Western Digital's SMR HelioSeal HDDs, which deliver unsurpassed density, power efficiency and reliability.

Even as researchers expect 3D NAND flash to achieve the 140-layer level by 2021, technology and manufacturers still have to take all the intermediate steps before we're actually there. In that sense, Western Digital has just announced that they're well on their way in producing 96-layer 3D NAND and distributing it to customers. For now, the memory will be used for inexpensive storage solutions, but the idea is to eventually ramp um production for other, higher-performance products.

Western Digital CEO Steve Milligan kept the production ramp-up (and the expectation of BiCS4 production eventually surpassing BiCS3) under wraps, but it seems all is going well with the production. He added that "(...) if you look to where we at from a yield curve perspective, because [BICS4] is not too mature, we are very pleased with where we are. Because once you get to a certain point, you can project where you are going to end at (based on cycles of learning, etc)." As announced by Western Digital before, it's likely this initial production run is delivering 256 Gb capacity chips, with improvements in yields to allow for increased capacity down the road, eventually, up to 1 Tb capacity per chip.

Toshiba Memory Corporation (TMC) today announced that it decided to start construction of a new state-of-the-art fab for BiCS FLASH , its proprietary 3D flash memory, in Kitakami, Iwate prefecture in July this year.

TMC has selected Kitakami City as the next location to expand its operations in September last year, and has started preparations for construction of the new fab. Demand for 3D flash memory is increasing significantly on fast growing demand for enterprise SSD for datacenters and servers. TMC expects continued strong growth in the mid and long term, and the timing of its construction positions it to capture this growth and expand its business.

The new fab will be completed in 2019, and will have a quake absorbing structure and an environmentally friendly design that includes the latest energy saving manufacturing equipment. It will also introduce an advanced production system that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to boost productivity. Decisions on the new fab's equipment investment, production capacity and production plan will reflect market trends. TMC expects to continue its joint venture investments based on discussion with Western Digital in the new facility.

Enabling new lower levels of total cost of ownership (TCO) for cloud and enterprise customers, Western Digital Corporation today introduced the Ultrastar DC HC530 hard drive - at 14TB, no other CMR (conventional magnetic recording) hard drive in the industry offers a higher capacity. The breadth and depth of big data is driving the universal need for higher capacities across a broad spectrum of applications and workloads. Built on Western Digital's fifth-generation HelioSeal technology, the Ultrastar DC HC530 drive is designed for public and private cloud environments where storage density, watt/TB and $/TB are critical parameters for creating the most cost-efficient infrastructure.

The data explosion caused by big data, IoT, artificial intelligence, machine learning, rich content and fast data applications is challenging hyperscale cloud data centers and enterprises to efficiently build massive petabyte-scale infrastructures. This ability to cost-effectively scale-up or scale-out is business critical, not only for cloud service providers but for organizations leveraging big data analytics and machine learning in medical, science, agriculture and other fields seeking innovation, discoveries and unique insights, as well as for creating new business models.