Western Digital has begun trial deliveries of 32 TB SMR HDDs

Western Digital announced the beginning of trial shipments of nearline drives with a capacity of 32 TB, aimed at hyperscalers. Devices made using tile magnetic recording (SMR) technology are by far the most capacious HDDs produced by Western Digital.

As AnandTech notes, the new products use the most advanced technical solutions of Western Digital. These include energy-assisted magnetic recording technology (EAMR/ePMR 2), as well as the new generation UltraSMR tiled magnetic recording system, which increases data storage density by 20% compared to traditional magnetic recording (CMR) techniques.

Image source: Western Digital

In addition, the drives use three-stage drives to improve head positioning and a two-dimensional magnetic recording system TDMR (Two-Dimensional Magnetic Recording), which is a technique for reading a track using two heads simultaneously. It also features OptiNAND technology, which uses on-chip iNAND flash memory to perform core service functions to improve reliability, improve performance, and reduce power consumption. Proprietary ECC error correction tools are mentioned.

«We are shipping samples of our 32TB UltraSMR/ePMR nearline drives to select customers,” said David Goeckeler, CEO of Western Digital. It should be noted that Toshiba previously demonstrated a HDD based on HAMR (heated magnetic recording) capable of storing 32 TB of data. Prior to this, Seagate was able to release HAMR drives with a capacity of 30 TB with classic recording geometry thanks to Mozaic 3+ technology, while the 32 TB mark was achieved using SMR.