The new ePMR drives also leverage Western Digital's OptiNAND technology to deliver unprecedented capacity, performance and data durability. The 22TB CMR ten-platter hard drive features OptiNAND technology that delivers an unparalleled 2.2TB areal density per platter on the advanced HelioSeal platform.
Combining OptiNAND technology with proprietary firmware that leverages system-level hard drive hardware enhancements, Western Digital's new UltraSMR technology introduces large block data encryption along with an advanced error correction algorithm that increases traces per inch (TPI) to achieve higher capacity. The result is the new 26TB Western Digital Ultrastar® DC HC670 UltraSMR hard drive, which delivers 2.6TB per platter and offers 18% more capacity for cloud customers optimizing their lineups to take advantage of SMR technology. As cloud service providers increasingly implement SMR technology into their data center plans, the 26TB capacity is a tipping point for accelerating adoption of the technology.
Hard drives with the unique OptiNAND technology also include a write cache data protection feature called ArmorCache,m which brings customers the powerful Write Cache Enable (WCE) feature combined with Write Cache Disable (WCD) data protection to enhance data protection or resiliency in the event of an Emergency Power Off (EPO). For the first time in hard drive history, this write cache data protection feature provides both high performance and data protection regardless of the mode selected. Even in WCD mode, OptiNAND technology provides a significant performance boost to drives, which is greatest in random write applications with larger data block transfers. With typical transfer lengths of 256KB and above, hard drives experience an IOPS and throughput increase of more than 40% over drives without OptiNAND technology. And at a transfer length of 1 MB, the maximum increase in these parameters is even more than 80%. Further details can be found in the technical overview here.
Availability of 22TB CMR hard drive and 26TB UltraSMR hard drive:
Both the 22TB Ultrastar DC HC570 hard drive and the new 26TB Ultrastar DC HC670 UltraSMR hard drive are now shipping to select hyperscale cloud customers for trial. Shipments of the DC HC570 hard drive to the distribution channel will begin in the summer of 2022. The UltraSMR hard drive will also begin shipping to select customers in the summer of 2022.
* Western Digital launches new 22TB hard drives with ePMR and OptiNAND technology
