Western Digital announces 26TB hard drives and 15TB server SSDs

Western Digital introduced a raft of latest merchandise yesterday geared toward each common shopper PCs and large companies with storage-hungry servers. The headliners are two new hard drives with huge capacities—one 26TB and one 22TB—in addition to high-capacity SSDs for servers, inside and exterior performance-focused WD Black SSDs, and mid-range PCIe 4.0 SSDs that might find yourself in your subsequent prebuilt laptop computer or desktop PC.

The 26TB Ultrastar DC HC670 drives use tech known as shingled magnetic recording, or SMR, to spice up the quantity of knowledge that may match on every platter, at the expense of performance. WD makes use of SMR know-how throughout its WD Pink Professional arduous drive lineup, amongst others, which is focused at companies moderately than dwelling customers. The WD Pink Plus drives, launched after WD was briefly caught utilizing SMR know-how in its arduous drives without publicizing it, use the extra conventional standard magnetic recording (CMR) as a substitute.

The 22TB drive does use CMR know-how, boosting capability whereas retaining efficiency. Present CMR drives largely prime out at 20TB as of this writing. Different 22TB arduous drives we have seen from companies like Seagate have needed to depend on SMR know-how to achieve that capability. This drive will present up in lots of Western Digital’s product households, together with the Ultrastar, WD Purple, WD Pink, and WD Gold lineups. The entire new drives are anticipated to be out there someday this summer time.

Shifting onto the SSDs, capacities go down, however the enterprise-grade drives are getting nearer. The UltraStar DC SN650 NVMe SSDs use a PCIe 4.0 interface and can are available each 2.5-inch and super-long E1.L variations, with capacities of as much as 15.36TB apiece. These drives are sampling now and can start delivery “within the second half of 2022.”

There are two new WD Black SSDs. The SN850X SSD is a comparatively gentle spec bump for the prevailing WD Black SN850 SSD; it is a high-end PCIe 4.0 SSD that WD says options learn speeds of as much as 7,300MBps (in comparison with 7,000MBps for the SN850). The WD Black P40 Recreation Drive SSD is an exterior drive geared toward players who do not need to crack open their consoles or gaming laptops so as to add extra high-speed storage. It guarantees learn speeds of as much as 2,000MBps, although it could want a 20Gbps USB 3.2 2×2 (or a Thunderbolt 3/4 port) to comprehend these speeds; switch speeds shall be extra restricted for typical 5 and 10Gbps USB ports. Like so many gamer-focused equipment, the P40 will embody user-customizable LED lighting.

The SN850X shall be out there in 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB capacities, with the 1TB drive beginning at $189.99. The exterior P40 SSD is available in 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB flavors, with costs beginning at $119.99. Each shall be out there someday this summer time.

WD additionally introduced a brand new PC SN740 SSD, a mid-range drive with a PCIe 4.0 interface and browse speeds as much as 5,150MBps. This is not terribly thrilling for PC builders or anybody whose laptop computer can match a typical 80-mm-long M.2 SSD—the WD Black SN770 matches its key specs and has been out there for months—however the SN740 is focused largely at PC corporations, which implies it stands likelihood of ending up in your subsequent prebuilt laptop computer or desktop.

One factor to notice in regards to the SN740 is that it is available in a 30-mm-long M.2 2230 variant, one which might be helpful for upgrading laptops and tablets that use the shorter-than-usual SSDs. Most Floor gadgets that help user-upgradeable storage, together with the Floor Professional 8, use M.2 2230 drives, but it surely’s tough to purchase higher-capacity variations for upgrades after the actual fact as a result of the drives are so uncommon. The SN740 can be geared toward PC producers moderately than finish customers—it is probably not out there for normal folks to purchase immediately—but it surely might be one other potential aftermarket choice.

Ars Technica might earn compensation for gross sales from hyperlinks on this publish via affiliate programs.