Western Digital Launches 12TB and 14TB HGST Ultrastar HDDs

Just when we thought that 10TB hard disk drives were impressive, Western Digital announces both 12TB and 14TB drives. Initially, the company will launch the Ultrastar He12 Helium HDD which is an industry-first eight-disk design.

The standard 3.5-inch form factor drive is using PMR technology to achieve the 12TB capacity over the eight disks, and it is wrapped in the HelioSeal technology for less resistance internally. It is also the world’s highest capacity hard disk drive for active random workloads.

Utilizing Western Digital’s unique HelioSeal process that seals helium in the drive to help provide the highest capacity HDD and exceptional power efficiency, the He12 comes in a single 12TB capacity point and offers either an SATA or SAS interface, both using Advanced Format. HelioSeal technology utilizes helium with 1/7 the density of air, enabling the use of thinner disks while maintaining a stable recording interface. The unique He12 design adds an eighth disk, two more than the highest capacity air-based drive, which enabled the capacity increase to 12TB, 50 percent more than the highest air-based design.

This additional capacity provides for increased storage density, reducing associated data center infrastructure required to store a given amount of data. It also encompasses a low-power design without compromising performance, which helps reduce the overall cost of ownership.

The company will extend the He12 platform further, leveraging SMR to provide even more capacity from the same essential hardware. The SMR version of the drive will deliver 14TB and will support, in particular, many cloud service providers that have implemented SMR support in their software architectures to more cost effectively store ever increasing data associated with the services they provide.

Ultrastar He12 Helium HDD

• HelioSeal: Western Digital’s fourth generation, based on exclusive HelioSeal technology, bringing the highest capacity HDD to market much sooner than competing technologies
• World’s first 8-disk design, 12TB capacity, available with either 12Gb/s SAS or 6Gb/s SATA interface
• Data Security: Instant Secure Erase, sanitize and safely redeploy HDDs using the Instant Secure Erase feature
• SED Features: Help protect end user data with encryption (Self Encrypting Drive)
• Reliability: Amongst the industry’s highest MTBF rating at 2.5M hours with a 5-year limited warranty

The HGST He12 is currently sampling to select OEMs and it will be generally available the first half of the 2017 calendar year. The 14TB SMR HDD will be generally available in the middle of 2017 calendar year. You can read up on all the details here.