Western Digital Delivers World’s Highest Capacity ePMR HDDs to Meet Growing Nearline Demand

Company Leads Industry with New 11-disk UltraSMR HDDs up to 32TB and CMR HDDs up to 26TB, Offering Superior TCO for Hyperscale, Cloud and Enterprise Data Center Customers

More than just storage, Western Digital HDDs are key enablers for businesses looking to optimize their infrastructure, lower TCO and future-proof their data strategies. Constantly innovating to meet the needs of our data-driven world, Western Digital (NASDAQ: WDC) today announced that it is now shipping the world’s highest capacity UltraSMR HDD with up to 32TB ¹ leveraging the time-tested, reliable energy-assisted PMR (ePMR) recording technology for hyperscalers, CSPs and enterprises. For those who want a drop-in ready HDD for today’s data-intensive workloads, the company is also now shipping the world’s highest-capacity ePMR CMR HDD with up to 26TB for enterprise and channel customers. With the world’s first commercially available 11-disk design and field-proven technology, these new drives reinforce Western Digital's commitment to delivering HDD technology that raises the bar on capacity, reliability and innovation.

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Western Digital leads industry with New 11-disk UltraSMR HDDs up to 32TB and CMR HDDs up to 26TB, offering superior TCO for hyperscale, cloud and enterprise data center customers (Photo: Business Wire)

The AI Data Cycle has emerged as a growth driver for the storage industry. As AI systems become more sophisticated, they process and generate vast amounts of data that must be stored efficiently. HDDs play a crucial role in this ecosystem, handling both the input side, where data is gathered, ingested and stored, and the output side, where AI content is generated and preserved. This dual role positions HDDs as a linchpin in the AI Data Cycle, ensuring that data is available when needed and stored with the lowest TCO.

Western Digital’s newest 26TB CMR and 32TB UltraSMR drives utilize multiple technological innovations to enable data centers to maximize their storage efficiency. In addition to ePMR, OptiNAND™, ArmorCache™ and a triple-stage actuator (TSA), the drives feature the world’s first commercially available 11-disk platform along with other design enhancements. Read: Innovating to 11: Western Digital Increases HDD Capacity, Not Size.

32TB Ultrastar® DC HC690 SMR HDD – Western Digital continues to lead the industry in SMR adoption, driving innovation to deliver superior storage capacity while lowering TCO. Now shipping, Western Digital’s Ultrastar DC HC690 UltraSMR HDDs with up to 32TB capacities support customer goals for cost-effective deep content storage at scale. These new HDDs have up to 257 MiB/s sequential performance and use as little as 5.5W power idle, making them ideal for warm and cold tiers of data.

26TB Ultrastar DC HC590 CMR HDD – Now shipping, Western Digital’s newest CMR drives are a drop-in replacement for continued capacity growth with a reliable, field-proven technology foundation. This latest generation of drives delivers unbeaten CMR capacity, seamless qualification, easy integration and rapid adoption while maintaining superior dependability and reliability. The Ultrastar DC HC590 26TB CMR HDD features a sustained transfer rate of up to 288 MiB/s and utilizes as little as 5.6W power while idle.

Ultrastar Data60, Data102 Hybrid Storage Platforms – The new Ultrastar HDDs are being qualified and integrated into the company’s Ultrastar Data60 and Data102 JBOD hybrid storage platforms, which are high-density, scalable storage solutions that are ideal for modern data centers, private clouds, and big data analytics. These platforms provide flexible configurations, accommodating up to 60 or 102 HDDs, and can deliver up to 3.26PB of raw capacity. Key technologies like IsoVibe™ and ArcticFlow™ ensure reduced vibration and optimized cooling, resulting in better performance and reliability. Availability will begin by year-end.

26TB WD Gold® SATA HDDs - Specifically designed for system integrators and resellers, new 26TB WD Gold HDDs are now available in the channel. Leveraging innovations from the Ultrastar HDD technology platform, the WD Gold 26TB HDD provides a no-compromise storage solution that incorporates our latest innovations to handle heavy, continuous read-write workloads in the toughest of enterprise and commercial system environments. With a five-year limited warranty ² supporting up to 2.5M hours MTBF ³ (projected), WD Gold drives provide the utmost in storage performance, reliability, durability and flexible capacity for small and medium businesses and design professionals whose mission-critical data and creative output are essential to their success.

“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,” said John Chen, Vice President at TRENDFOCUS. “With the addition of the new 11-disk platform, Western Digital is well-positioned to continue to drive key HDD use cases – optimizing virtually all users in all markets for success in today’s data-intensive landscape.”

“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,” said Ravi Pendekanti, SVP of Product Management, HDD Business Unit, Western Digital. “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.”

About Western Digital

Western Digital is on a mission to unlock the potential of data by harnessing the possibility to use it. With Flash and HDD franchises, underpinned by advancements in memory technologies, we create breakthrough innovations and powerful data storage solutions that enable the world to actualize its aspirations. Core to our values, we recognize the urgency to combat climate change and have committed to ambitious carbon reduction goals approved by the Science Based Targets initiative. Learn more about Western Digital and the Western Digital®, SanDisk® and WD® brands at www.westerndigital.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This media alert contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws, including but not limited to, statements concerning expectations for impact of the AI Data Cycle on demand for data storage, growth in HDD exabyte shipments and the performance, availability, impact and total cost of ownership of the company’s products. These forward-looking statements are based on management’s current expectations as of the date of this media alert and are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements.

Key risks and uncertainties include: volatility in global economic conditions; operational, financial and legal challenges and difficulties inherent in implementing a separation of the company's HDD and flash businesses; the final approval of the separation by the company's board of directors; inflation and economic recession; future responses to and effects of public health crises; the impact of business and market conditions; the outcome and impact of the company’s announced separation transaction, including with respect to customer and supplier relationships, regulatory and contractual restrictions, stock price volatility and the diversion of management’s attention from ongoing business operations and opportunities; impact of competitive products and pricing; the company’s development and introduction of products based on new technologies and expansion into new data storage markets; risks associated with cost saving initiatives, restructurings, acquisitions, divestitures, mergers, joint ventures and the company’s strategic relationships; difficulties or delays in manufacturing or other supply chain disruptions; hiring and retention of key employees; the company’s level of debt and other financial obligations; changes to the company’s relationships with key customers; compromise, damage or interruption from cybersecurity incidents or other data system security risks; actions by competitors; the impact of international conflicts; risks associated with compliance with changing legal and regulatory requirements and the outcome of legal proceedings; and other risks and uncertainties listed in the company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC on August 20, 2024, to which your attention is directed. You should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof, and the company undertakes no obligation to update or revise these forward-looking statements to reflect new information or events, except as required by law.

¹ One gigabyte (GB) is equal to one billion bytes, one terabyte (TB) is equal to one trillion bytes, and one petabyte (PB ) is equal to one quadrillion bytes. Actual user capacity may be less due to operating environment.

² See https://support.wdc.com/warranty/ for regional specific warranty details.

³ Final MTBF and AFR specifications will be based on a sample population and are estimated by statistical measurements and acceleration algorithms under typical operating conditions, typical workload and 40°C device-reported temperature. Derating of MTBF and AFR will occur above these parameters, up to 550TB/year and 60°C (device reported temperature). MTBF and AFR ratings do not predict an individual drive’s reliability and do not constitute a warranty.

© 2024 Western Digital Corporation or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Western Digital, the Western Digital design, the Western Digital logo, ArmorCache, ArcticFlow, IsoVibe, OptiNAND, Ultrastar, and WD Gold are registered trademarks or trademarks of Western Digital Corporation or its affiliates in the U.S. and/or other countries. All other marks are the property of their respective owners. Product specifications are subject to change without notice. Pictures shown may vary from actual products. Not all products will be available in all regions of the world.

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