SSDs have long been the norm in PCs and laptops, but traditional hard drives still make a lot of sense, especially if you have extensive storage needs.
This is what the new units show Western Digital Ultrastar 26TB, which are aimed at business systems, but are accompanied by various models of 22 TB capacity. “Suck that, SSD,” those drives seem to be saying.
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More capacity thanks to the use of SMR technology
The Western Digital Ultrastar DC HC670 26TB They are the clear protagonists of a launch that is also interesting due to the 22 TB Ultrastar DC HC570 version, also aimed at data centers.
Accompanying these models are WD Red Pro (for NAS9), WD Purple Pro (for video surveillance) and WD Gold (business hard drive) drives, being all of them also 22 TB capacity.
The DC HC670, yes, use SMR technology (Shingled Magnetic Recording), which sacrifices some performance in order to increase the data density on each disk of the hard drive. That same technology is used in the WD Red Pro, for example, and it’s a good compromise for those business environments.
Precisely for this reason, the DC HC570 is also interesting, even though it has a little less capacity yes it makes use of CMR technology (Conventional Recording Recording), which allows access to better transfer rates both in reading and writing. We’ve seen 20TB CMR drives, but here WD sets an important precedent.
New WD_Black SSDs
Accompanying these traditional hard drives are also enterprise SSD drives. The UltraStar DC SN650 is a drive with up to 15.36 TBPCIe interface and is available in both 2.5-inch disk and E1.L format, specifically designed to be used in server racks.
We also have new drives in the WD_Black family for end users. The SN850X it’s a PCIe 4.0 drive with up to 4TB and read speeds of up to 7,300MB/s.
The WD_Black P40 Game Drive it is an external SSD of up to 2 TB oriented to its use in new generation consoles, and it promises readings of 2,000 MB/s.
Drives in the M.2 2230 format are common in laptops and tablets. Source: ArsTechnica.
Another interesting unit is PC SN740, a model highly designed for OEMs and manufacturers with read rates of up to 5,150 MB/s. makes use of M.2 2230 format (30 mm long), very popular on laptops or tablets, and for example also used on Steam Decks.
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