Western Digital Announces World's First 14TB Enterprise-Class Hard Drive

Western Digital today announced the world’s first 14TB enterprise-class hard drive featuring host-managed shingled magnetic recording (SMR) technology. Western Digital’s HGST-branded Ultrastar Hs14 is capable of delivering 40 percent more capacity and more than twice the sequential write performance of its SMR predecessor, enabling more economical and efficient capture of the growing volume and variety of data. 

The future is built on the insights and predictive power of big data. As data grows exponentially, storing it all in an affordable and accessible manner is an ongoing challenge for enterprise and cloud service data center operators. With a focus on total cost of ownership (TCO), the factors of capacity per rack, power consumption, cooling, maintenance, and acquisition cost are all paramount. To combat the big data challenge, Ultrastar Hs14 drives deliver unprecedented capacity leadership and online watt/TB power efficiency for extremely low TCO by harnessing two core complimentary technologies – fourth generation HelioSeal technology, and second generation host-managed SMR – along with enterprise-class reliability. 

These mature, field-proven technologies provide the foundation for delivering efficient, 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, Ultrastar Hs14 HDDs offer a 16 percent increase in capacity[1] while keeping highly predictable, highly reliable performance. 

“Over 70 percent 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 are the foundation of our leadership in high-capacity enterprise storage.”

Ultrastar Hs14 14TB Enterprise Drive Features and Specifications:

• HelioSeal Technology: Western Digital’s fourth-generation helium filled drive technology brings the highest capacity hard drive to market much sooner than competing offerings.

• Host-managed SMR Technology: Second-generation enterprise storage deployment of host-managed SMR delivers 14TB with no compromise of performance predictability and consistency. Host-managed SMR hard drives are designed specifically for sequential write environments, and will not work as drop-in replacements for traditional capacity enterprise drives.

• Reliability: Amongst the industry’s highest MTBF rating at 2.5M hours.

Availability

The Ultrastar Hs14 enterprise hard drive is currently sampling to select OEMs and comes with a 5-year limited warranty. For more information on the Ultrastar Hs14 14TB enterprise drive, visit: http://www.hgst.com/products/hard-drives/ultrastar-hs14.

Western Digital announces the WD Blue 3D NAND SATA SSD and SanDisk Ultra 3D SSD

Western Digital today announced the availability of the WD Blue 3D NAND SATA SSD and SanDisk Ultra 3D SSD in Malaysia. The new SSDs are the world's first client solid state drives built with the company's 64-layer 3D NAND technology.

High Capacity with Enhanced Reliability & Battery Life

The 64-layer 3D NAND technology allows higher capacity storage than the previous generation SSDs. Now the new WD Blue and SanDisk Ultra SSD have up to 2 TB storage capacity. Apart from higher capacity, the new technology also helps to reduce cell-to-cell interference for enhanced reliability at the same time reducing the active power draw up to 25%.

Then, of course, through the SATA interface, it allows up to sequential read and write speed of 560 MB/s and 530 MB/s respectively.

Pricing & Availability

The WD Blue 3D NAND SATA SSDs and SanDisk Ultra 3D SSDs will be available in 2.5-inch (7mm) cased drive form factor with the following storage options:

• 250 GB - RM 620
• 500 GB - RM 1,100
• 1 TB - RM 2,000
• 2 TB - RM 3,800

The WD Blue SanDisk Ultra 3D SSDs also available in single-sided M.2 2280 form factor with the following storage options:

• 250 GB - RM 640
• 500 GB - RM 1,150
• 1 TB - RM 2,100
• 2 TB - RM 3,950

Every WD Blue 3D NAND SATA SSD & SanDisk Ultra 3D SSD comes with a 3-year limited warranty.

Western Digital Announces Four-Bits-Per-Cell Technology on 3D NAND - 50% Capacity Increase Over Three-Bits-Per-Cell Architecture

Western Digital Corp. today announced its successful development of four bits per cell, X4, flash memory architecture offering on 64-layer 3D NAND, BiCS3, technology. Building on its pioneering innovation of X4 for 2D NAND technology and past success in commercializing it, the company has now developed X4 for 3D NAND by leveraging its deep vertical integration capabilities. These include silicon wafer processing, device engineering to provide sixteen distinct data levels in every storage node, and system expertise for overall flash management. BiCS3 X4 technology delivers an industry-leading storage capacity of 768 gigabits on a single chip, a 50 percent increase from the prior 512 gigabit chip that was enabled with the three bits per cell (X3) architecture. Western Digital will showcase removable products and solid-state drives built with BiCS3 X4 and systems capabilities in August at the Flash Memory Summit in Santa Clara, California.

“The implementation of X4 architecture on BiCS3 is a significant development for Western Digital as it demonstrates our continued leadership in NAND flash technology, and it also enables us to offer an expanded choice of storage solutions for our customers,” said Dr. Siva Sivaram, executive vice president, Memory Technology, Western Digital. “The most striking aspect in today’s announcement is the use of innovative techniques in the X4 architecture that allows our BiCS3 X4 to deliver performance attributes comparable to those in BiCS3 X3. The narrowing of the performance gap between the X4 and X3 architectures is an important and differentiating capability for us, and it should help drive broader market acceptance of X4 technology over the next several years.”

This latest achievement follows a nearly three-decade long legacy of industry firsts in flash innovation, including the industry’s multi-level cell (MLC) flash technologies using two bits (X2) and three bits (X3) per cell.

The company expects to productize its 3D NAND X4 technology across multiple end-use applications that can take advantage of the higher capacity points supported by X4. Future generations of 3D NAND technology, including the 96-layer BiCS4, are also expected to feature X4 capabilities.

Western Digital Expands Storage Capacity Of Several Drives In The My Passport® Line Up To 4tb Providing New Capacity For The Industry’s Iconic Brand

Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ: WDC) today announced the launch of its My Passport® Ultra, and upcoming My Passport for Mac portable hard drives, with up to 4TB capacity, filling the need for people to physically carry massive personal collections of videos, photos and other content with them, in a device roughly the size of a smartphone. The perfect blend of style and functionality, these My Passport® portable hard drives meet the needs of today’s consumers with features people love like easy-to-use backup software, password protection and portable style in multiple colors, coupled with USB 3.0 connectivity. 

Perfect for students, business people and general consumers on-the-go who prefer to carry their device with them, these My Passport portable hard drives are dependable, with easy-to-use WD Backup™ automatic backup software with cloud-ready Dropbox™ integration and 256-bit AES hardware encryption with password protection to help safeguard against unauthorized drive access. With these My Passport drives, it's now easier than ever to have a content protection plan that fits everyone’s busy life.

“The increasingly mobile lifestyle has consumers capturing their lives with smartphones and high-resolution cameras, growing their personal content collections and creating demand for even more storage capacity,” says Sven Rathjen, vice president of marketing, content solutions, Western Digital. “At WD, we’re committed to providing our consumers with space to take their digital lives with them through high-capacity and high-quality devices.”

Pricing and Availability

My Passport Ultra 4TB portable hard drives have a 3-year limited warranty and are available at select retailers and distributed by Eternal Asia (M) Sdn Bhd in Malaysia. The Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) for the My Passport Ultra 4TB is RM699.00.

Western Digital Announces World’s First 64 Layer 3d Nand Technology

Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ: WDC) today announced that it has successfully developed its next generation 3D NAND technology, BiCS3, with 64 layers of vertical storage capability. Pilot production of the new technology has commenced in the Yokkaichi, Japan joint venture facilities and initial output is expected later this year. Western Digital expects meaningful commercial volumes of BiCS3 in the first half of calendar 2017.

“The launch of the next generation 3D NAND technology based on our industry-leading 64 layer architecture reinforces our leadership in NAND flash technology,” said Dr. Siva Sivaram, executive vice president, memory technology, Western Digital. “BiCS3 will feature the use of 3-bits-per-cell technology along with advances in high aspect ratio semiconductor processing to deliver higher capacity, superior performance and reliability at an attractive cost. Together with BiCS2, our 3D NAND portfolio has broadened significantly, enhancing our ability to address a full spectrum of customer applications in retail, mobile and data center.”

BiCS3, which has been developed jointly with Western Digital’s technology and manufacturing partner Toshiba, will be initially deployed in 256 gigabit capacity and will be available in a range of capacities up to half a terabit on a single chip. Western Digital expects volume shipments of BiCS3 for the retail market in the fourth calendar quarter of 2016 and to begin OEM sampling this quarter. Shipments of the company’s previous generation 3D NAND technology, BiCS2, continue to customers in retail and OEM.