HGST announces enterprise 6TB and 8TB hard drives, with plans for 10TB HDD and 3.2TB SSD

HGST (informally known to most as Hitachi's storage division, though it it now owned by Western Digital) announced multiple new storage solutions for the enterprise space, with both its traditional platter-based hard drives and its NAND-based solid state drives receiving new models.

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Currently shipping is the Ultrastar 7K6000, a continuation of the Ultrastar line started by Hitachi many generations ago. This update to the line features technology allowing an air-filled drive to sport a capacity of 6 terabytes with a 7,200 RPM spindle speed.

Not content to just rest at 6 TB with traditional air, the subsidiary of Western Digital also announced another addition to the Ultrastar line, the Ultrastar He8. As the name implies, this model eschews air for helium inside the chassis, allowing a bump up to 8 TB of storage in one drive. Also available in a 6 TB configuration, the drive is being tested by various OEMs for use in data centers and will undoubtedly be put into use immediately should those samples meet the requirements of operation. Of course, if data center owners can stand to wait, a 10TB He model is on the roadmap with no mention of a target release date.

And for scenarios where latency and throughput under heavy loads is a priority over raw storage size, the Ultrastar line continues to grow with the addition of the PCIe-based Ultrastar SN100 SSD. Currently being tested by OEMs, the drive is slated to be available in capacities up to 3.2 TB depending on configuration, and will be shipped as either a traditional add-in card or as a 2.5-inch form factor drive. Performance relies on the now preferred NVMe spec for interfacing with the operating system and drive-management software, and is said to feature Toshiba MLC NAND that will be managed by what HGST calls CellCare to enhance longevity.

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With these advancements in the enterprise space, it is only a matter of time before the benefits trickle down to the consumer space. We have seen a number of speedy SSD models come out in many market segments over the past 6 months, and 4TB platter-based hard drives pushing 200MB/s sequential read speeds are no longer the largest drives available. With these new releases, HGST may merely be performing business as usual, but it's also pushing the industry in a direction that hopefully will benefit everyone.

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