According to Western Digital, HDDs should play a more important role in the AI landscape.
Western Digital presents a new strategy to reinvent hard drives for AI workloads and reposition the role of HDDs within cloud and hyperscale infrastructures.
40TB drives and HAMR on the way
During its virtual Innovation Day 2026, Western Digital outlines a multi-year strategy. This strategy focuses on higher capacity, better performance, lower energy consumption, and easier deployment. It is aligned with the explosive data growth caused by AI applications.
The eye-catcher is the 40 TB UltraSMR ePMR hard drive, currently with the highest capacity on the market. It is already in qualification tests with hyperscale customers, with mass production planned for the second half of 2026. Qualifications of HAMR-based drives are also underway, with large-scale rollout expected in 2027.
HDD performance towards flash
WD introduces new performance-enhancing technologies that bring HDDs closer to flash storage, writes SiliconANGLE. High Bandwidth Drive technology enables read and write operations across multiple heads and tracks. This technology can extract twice the bandwidth from the drives for faster operation. Dual Pivot, in turn, improves sequential input and output performance without losing capacity.
For AI data that needs to remain quickly accessible but is rarely used, WD is working on energy-efficient HDDs that should reduce power consumption by about 20 percent. These drives are scheduled for 2027.
Finally, WD is expanding its Platforms division with a software layer via open APIs. This will make it easier to manage large-scale storage environments from 200 petabytes and put them into production faster.