14TB enterprise hard disk drives provide data centers with big capacity

Western Digital is providing cloud and hyperscale data centers the capacity required by big data applications with what is claimed to be the world’s first 14TB enterprise-class hard drive featuring host-managed SMR technology. The company’s HGST-branded Ultrastar Hs14 delivers 40% more capacity and more than twice the sequential write performance of its predecessor, enabling more economical and efficient capture of the growing volume and variety of data. To combat the big data challenge, the drives deliver unprecedented capacity leadership and online watt/TB power efficiency for extremely low TCO by harnessing two core complmentary technologies – fourth generation HelioSeal technology, and second generation host-managed SMR – along with enterprise-class relaibility. These mature, field-proven technologies provide the foundation for delivering efficiency, quality and reliable performance required by cloud and hyperscale environments, perfect for ultra-dense scale-out storage systems running sequential write workloads. By utilizing SMR technology, The HDDs offer a 16% increase in capacity while keeping highly predictable, highly reliable performance. “Over 70% of the exabytes Western Digital ships into the capacity enterprise segment are on helium-based high capacity drives and continue to support customers with outstanding reliability, performance and value Quality of Service (QoS),” said Mark Grace, senior vice president of devices at Western Digital. “The TCO and reliability benefits of our HelioSeal platform is the foundation of our leadership in high capacity enterprise storage.”