Western Digital has just broken the 20 TB barrier by announcing two new hard drives: the Ultrastar DC HC570 22 TB and the Ultrastar DC HC670 26 TB.
The 22 TB Ultrastar DC HC570 uses, among other things, ePMR (energy-assisted PMR) technology to store 2.2 TB of data per platter. This technology generates an additional magnetic field throughout the write operation by applying an electric current to the main pole of the write head. The disc also benefits from triple-jointed arms (triple-stage actuator), helium filling (HelioSeal) and OptiNAND technology. This stores control metadata in flash memory, which frees up disk space.
But the Ultrastar DC HC670 26TB goes even further by adding SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording) technology. The latter consists of tightening the tracks and reading, but also writing, several tracks at the same time. This gives a storage of 2.6 TB of data per platter, for a total capacity of 26 TB. The resulting technology is called UltraSMR by the manufacturer.
But all these new technologies are more expensive than a conventional PMR hard drive, which explains why Western Digital reserves its new models for data centers, whose storage needs continue to increase. In addition, SMR technology turns out to be well designed for archiving, but very poorly suited for everyday use, involving many erasing and writing operations.
The arrival of consumer UltraSMR hard drives is therefore unlikely, while ePMR technology could become widespread in a few years.
Currently, consumer hard drives for desktop PCs do not exceed 8 TB, or even 10 TB for certain models intended for gamers. It is on the side of NAS-type storage servers that you have to look to find larger sizes. But then again, don’t expect to find a drive larger than 14TB unless you go into the business model category. These then offer capacities of up to 20 TB.
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Finally, note that, for the moment, Western Digital is ignoring more sophisticated storage technologies, such as MAMR (Microwave Assisted Magnetic Recording) and HAMR (Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording).
Ultrastar DC HC570 22TB and Ultrastar DC HC670 26TB drives are being sampled at select customers. The volume delivery of the DC HC570 should take place in stride, but it will be necessary to wait until the summer for the delivery of the 26 TB UltraSMR model.