Demand For High-capacity, Low-power, Reliable Storage To Surge, Says Western Digital

When combined with the emergence of generative AI and the multitude of innovative applications it is enabling, the demand for high-capacity, low-power and reliable storage is poised to surge, says Western Digital.

This is even as the company was leveraging on numerous technology innovations, which include ePMR, OptiNAND™ and UltraSMR, to deliver predictable capacity growth in scalable, highly reliable products. To this end, Western Digital is now shipping its new 10-disk 24TB1 CMR HDD family for hyperscale, cloud and enterprise data center customers.

Sampling since August, the new 28TB SMR HDD is also ramping, adding to the company’s SMR leadership position and momentum as its 26TB SMR HDD exabyte shipments reached nearly half of its data center exabytes shipped in the first quarter fiscal year 2024.

In a press statement made available to LEADERSHIP, research director, Hard Disk Drive and Storage Technologies with IDC, Ed Burns, said as new applications use cases and connected devices multiply, Western Digital’s enterprise-class hard disk drives (HDDs) remain critical for helping data center customers design more cost-efficient, scalable and sustainable infrastructure.

“With these new offerings, Western Digital is once again proving that hard drives are not just keeping pace, they are forging a path forward, ensuring that data-intensive applications of today and tomorrow have a strong foundation to build on. We are seeing strong momentum for Western Digital’s SMR HDDs and believe that SMR adoption will continue to grow as their new 28TB SMR HDD offers the next compelling TCO value proposition that cloud customers cannot ignore,” Burns revealed.

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This new generation of drives is built on a proven platform with technology innovations specifically designed for data center customers who are consistently looking for the highest capacity storage to help them achieve the lowest possible total cost of ownership (TCO).

These high-capacity HDDs are also a significant step forward in meeting the company’s sustainability targets and toward helping data center customers meet theirs. Specifically, these 28TB and 24TB HDDs are built with 40 per cent (by weight) recycled content, and are 10%+² more energy efficient per terabyte, contributing to customers’ data center infrastructure power efficiency goals at scale.

EVP and GM, HDD Business Unit, Western Digital, Ashley Gorakhpurwalla, added, “New and existing endpoints from industries, connected devices, digital platforms, AI innovations, autonomous machines and more create a staggering amount of data each day. This relentless creation of data ultimately finds its way to the cloud, which is underpinned by our continued advancements in HDDs.

“As a strategic partner to cloud and data center customers around the world, we are extending the value of our proven HDD platform and technology innovations to deliver the highest capacity HDD storage and TCO value that our customers demand,” it stated.