Western Digital: Helioseal HDD with 10 TB and PMR technology – Computer Base

Picture: Western Digital

The big difference from the beginning of June featured HGST Although UltraStar Archive HA10 is the use of common with most hard drives PMR instead SMR technology (Shingled Magnetic Recording), allowing deployment scenarios with a higher power requirement.

Western Digital promises the same for the Ultrastar HE10 several superlatives , In addition to the largest capacity in the hard disk sector, the new model will offer the lowest power consumption per terabyte of storage as well as the reliability of all hard drives on the market. In figures, this is compared with the largest air-filled hard drives with 8 TB 25 percent more storage capacity, lower by 56 percent lower power consumption per terabyte respectively a total of 44 percent lower power consumption and increased by 25 percent to 2.5 million hours MTBF, so Western Digital .

The high capacities are possible through the use of helium as a filling gas for the hard drives. Since it has a lower density than air, turbulence is substantially reduced in the interior of the housing. This not only increases the precision and reliability of the read / write heads while driving on the platter, allowing for higher data density. It can be installed than with air-filled hard drives in the same form factor (3.5-inch 26.1 mm height) and more platters and read / write heads. With still seven platters and one of 664 to 816 Gbit / in² increased data density is the 10-TB model of the provisional peak of development.

In addition, decreases due to the lower density of helium, the resistance of the rotating platter, whereby the power consumption and as a result the heat generation is reduced – especially on a large scale in data centers a non-negligible size, since both the current demand of the drives themselves as well as those for cooling compared to conventional hard drives considerably lower

The combination of high density, low power requirements and increased reliability to more than recoup the comparatively high cost of Helioseal hard drives in the accounts over the life (Total Cost of Ownership).

Different versions available

In order to meet the different requirements of customers, offers Western Digital different versions of UltraStar available with 10 or 8 TB storage capacity HE10. First differentiator is the interface in which the customer / s has the choice of SATA 6 Gb / s SAS and 12Gb. These in turn are available in versions with 4 KB sector size or emulated 512 bytes. Consist Lastly options for Instant Secure Erase, Secure Erase, hardware encryption (SED) and TCG encryption with FIPS (only SAS).