WD has jumped up to higher densities in its HDD line, shipping 32 TB SMR and 26 TB CMR drives as drop-in replacements to bring higher capacities to clouds and OEMs.
Western Digital added new HDDs to its line up and began to ship its densest drives to date, lowering the cost per terabyte for customers.
This week, Western Digital started distributing the 32 TB Ultrastar DC HC690, which is its densest HDD on the market thanks to shingled magnetic recording (SMR) technology, in which data tracks overlap. The company also started shipping a 26 TB conventional magnetic recording (CMR) HDD, the Ultrastar DC HC590, as well as a 26 TB Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA)-interface HDD, which is also a WD Gold drive. All three of the new drives utilize an additional 11th platter to hit the new, higher capacities.
WD is increasing the capacity of its drives by adding platters, which is a proven technology.
John ChenAnalyst, TrendFocus
HDD vendors continue to look for ways to increase the areal density of hard drives, according to John Chen, an analyst at TrendFocus. While Seagate introduced heated assisted magnetic recording (HAMR), which uses a laser to write data to disk, Western Digital is taking a more traditional route of finding ways to increase the density of its HDDs by using its existing technology.
"WD is increasing the capacity of its drives by adding platters, which is a proven technology," Chen said.
WD, Seagate neck-and-neck
Seagate shipped its 32 TB HAMR-based HDDs earlier in the year for qualification to ensure the drives work in the customer environments, but that process is still underway, according to HDD experts.
Western Digital's HC690 offers a 32 TB HDD option as a drop-in replacement for SMR drives with a lower density, the vendor stated. The drive was first unveiled in June.
SMR drives introduce their own complexity around sequential writes as well as limitations on random reads. But they are gaining traction in the hyperscaler market, which can segment workloads in a way that doesn't affect service-level agreements, according to Ed Burns, an analyst at IDC. Plus, he added, the drives provide a better dollar-per-terabyte ratio.
"You get 32 TB of SMR capacity, but the bill of materials for that drive is 26 TB," he said.
For customers that use CMR drives, WD's HC590 comes with 288 MBps data transfer rates. Similar to the 32 TB HDD, the HC590 uses an extra platter to increase the density, Burns said.
"[Both utilize] an additional disk and two heads, using technologies WD has pioneered to maintain high areal density," he said.
SATA still sensible
The 26 TB WD Gold HDD but uses the SATA-interface. SATA is an older and slower interface than the more modern Serial-Attached SCSI and Peripheral Component Interconnect Express disk options, but it continues to be relevant.
Most cloud companies use SATA HDDs, according to Chen. "It's purely a cost thing for them, and they don't need the extra features," he said.
SAS HDDs sales go to on-premises and OEM vendors like Dell, NetApp and HPE, Burns said.
"A vast majority of the hyperscale markets are taking SATA; it's a little bit lower cost and it meets their needs," Burns said.
All the drives WD released are also being qualified and integrated into the vendor's Ultrastar Data60 and Data102 JBOD hybrid storage systems. The systems can provide up to 3.26 petabytes raw capacity.
Adam Armstrong is a TechTarget Editorial news writer covering file and block storage hardware and private clouds. He previously worked at StorageReview.
