Western Digital has unveiled two groundbreaking hard disk drives, including a 32TB model that claims the title of highest capacity drive using UltraSMR technology.
The data storage giant has begun shipping the new drives aimed at meeting growing enterprise storage demands in the AI era.
The flagship Ultrastar DC HC690 shingled magnetic recording (SMR) drive offers 32 terabytes of storage capacity while delivering sequential performance of up to 257 MiB/s.
A 26 TB conventional magnetic recording (CMR) drive has also launched, targeting enterprise and channel customers seeking drop-in capacity upgrades.
Both drives feature Western Digital's first commercially available 11-disk design platform.
"Our CMR and UltraSMR technology isn't just breaking records—it's giving customers the efficiency and TCO benefits they've been asking for," said Ravi Pendekanti, senior vice president of product management at Western Digital's HDD business unit.
The drives incorporate multiple technological innovations including energy-assisted PMR recording, OptiNAND, ArmorCache and triple-stage actuator technology.
Western Digital has also announced new 26TB WD Gold SATA drives specifically designed for system integrators and resellers.
The WD Gold drives come with a five-year limited warranty and support up to 2.5 million hours mean time between failures.
The company's Ultrastar Data60 and Data102 storage platforms will integrate the new drives by year-end.
These platforms can accommodate up to 60 or 102 hard drives respectively, delivering raw storage capacity of up to 3.26 petabytes.
"With the rise of AI, edge computing, and large-scale data centres, HDDs play a critical role in delivering huge capacity, performance and low power," said John Chen, vice president at market intelligence firm TRENDFOCUS.
The new drives are positioned to support the growing AI data cycle, handling both data input and AI-generated content storage.
Power efficiency remains a key focus, with the 32 TB model using as little as 5.5W when idle.
The announcement reinforces Western Digital's commitment to pushing hard drive technology boundaries while maintaining reliability.
.png&w=100&c=1&s=0)
