Western Digital launches world's largest 32TB UltraSMR HDD

Western Digital has announced the shipment of the world's highest-capacity UltraSMR HDD, boasting storage up to 32TB.

The company is leveraging energy-assisted PMR (ePMR) recording technology to appeal to hyperscalers, cloud service providers, and enterprises. In tandem, Western Digital is also dispatching a high-capacity ePMR CMR HDD offering up to 26TB aimed at enterprise and channel customers who require large-scale, data storage solutions.

These advancements in hard disk drive technology are positioned to support the increased demands for storage solutions due to emerging trends such as AI, edge computing, and large-scale data centres. The new offerings promise added capacity, performance, and efficiency while addressing the need for low power consumption.

The AI Data Cycle is highlighted as a significant growth factor for the storage sector. As artificial intelligence technology evolves, it processes larger volumes of data, necessitating efficient storage solutions. Hard disk drives are crucial in this ecosystem, handling extensive data storage requirements while ensuring cost efficiency.

Western Digital's latest drives take advantage of multiple technological innovations including OptiNAND, ArmorCache, and a triple-stage actuator. The drives are built on an 11-disk platform, a first in the commercial market, pushing the boundaries of storage capacity without increasing physical drive size.

The 32TB Ultrastar DC HC690 SMR HDD stands out with its utility for cost-effective large-scale content storage. These drives achieve sequential performance up to 257 MiB/s and operate at idle as low as 5.5W, making them suitable for various data storage tiers.

The 26TB Ultrastar DC HC590 CMR HDDs offer a drop-in solution for enhancing current storage capacities, offering seamless integration and high dependability. They deliver a sustained transfer rate of up to 288 MiB/s and idle power usage at 5.6W.

Western Digital's new HDDs are being incorporated into the company's Ultrastar Data60 and Data102 hybrid storage platforms, which provide high-density, scalable solutions ideal for data centres and big data analytics. These platforms support configurations of up to 60 or 102 HDDs, providing vast raw capacity.

The 26TB WD Gold SATA HDDs are also available for system integrators and resellers, promising heavy workload handling capabilities and extensive reliability, backed by a five-year warranty. These drives are built to deliver top-tier performance and flexibility for businesses with critical data storage needs.

John Chen, Vice President at TRENDFOCUS, commented, "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." He noted Western Digital's strategic position with the new 11-disk platform to drive industry use cases successfully.

Ravi Pendekanti, Senior Vice President of HDD Product Management at Western Digital, remarked, "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. 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."