Western Digital launch world’s first 20TB SMR HDD

Western Digital has announced it is shipping new HDD samples to enterprise OEMs and hyperscale customers worldwide. The new devices are the industry’s highest capacity HDDs featuring up to a huge 20TB capacity in SMR form.

First announced in September 2019, the new high-capacity HDDs from Western digital include the 20 TB Ultrastar DC HC650 SMR and 18 TB Ultrastar DC HC550 CMR and utilise the company’s first implementation of energy-assisted magnetic recording on a nine disk platform to enable more efficient provision and scale of data centre environments with unmatched total cost.

With data growth reaching a zettabyte scale, high capacity enterprise HDDs are the way to efficiently store data across a broad spectrum of applications. Western Digital’s new 18TB and 20TB Ultrastar HDD’s enable customers to deploy as many as 22% fewer racks and reduce TCO by up to 11%. This also means a reduction in power consumption, cooling costs and a reduction in data centre infrastructure when compared with today’s 14TB CMR HDDs.

Western Digital’s use of innovative energy-assisted magnetic recording, together with the company’s HeliosSeal and SMR technology means the new Ultrastar HDDs achieve the industry’s highest areal density performance and a dramatic gain in drive capacity.

“Delivering samples of our Ultrastar 20 TB SMR and 18 TB CMR HDDs marks a significant milestone for Western Digital—demonstrating our enduring commitment to the open SMR-based ecosystem, as well as our strong track record of innovation to provide great value for our customers,” said Phil Bullinger, senior vice president and general manager of Western Digital's Data Center Business Unit.

Western Digital has started sampling the 20 TB Ultrastar DC HC650 SMR and 18 TB DC HC550 CMR HDDs, with volume shipments expected to begin in the first half of 2020.

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KitGuru says: New 18 and 20 TB drives from Western Digital could potentially help data centres reduce running costs with the huge capacity they provide. What do you guys think to these new devices from Western Digital?

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