Overview
High-Capacity Hard Drives
Powerful Storage Platforms
HDD Innovation

Innovating HDDs for the Data-Driven World

Count on us to help you transform data, achieving breakthroughs to create a better, safer, and more connected world.

How WD Is Redefining Data Storage

Data growth continues to accelerate with more data generated in the last three years than in the past 3,0001. And yet, only 2% of all data is saved, fueling the need for mass storage solutions that can transform data into insights to improve how we live, work, and connect.

Enter WD, whose HDD technologies have been at the innovation forefront for 50-plus years. Whether it’s driving cutting-edge healthcare, leveraging AI to solve global problems, or capturing user likes and dislikes to generate music recommendations, WD HDD innovations help unlock data’s potential—creating new opportunities, spurring new discoveries, and delivering better experiences.

Learn how our innovations drive digital transformation 

50+

Years pioneering data storage innovations

32TB

HDD—the highest achieved, leveraging WD’s most advanced technologies

~3000

Active HDD patents secured by WD’s innovative technologists

180M+

HelioSeal drives have been deployed since its introduction in 20132

Breakthrough HDD Technologies Driving Data Innovation

WD HDD innovations help turn data into actionable insights and life-changing outcomes.

High Bandwidth Drive Technology

WD’s High Bandwidth Drive Technology (HBDT) will significantly boost performance without raising total cost of ownership. HBDT enables concurrent access to multiple tracks, so cloud customers can benefit from data throughput that scales with drive density.

Dual Pivot Technology

Dual Pivot Technology will use two actuators on separate pivots to double throughput and reduce disk spacing, increasing drive performance and capacity and helping maintain total cost of ownership. As cloud workloads expand, WD's design will offer faster, more efficient data storage than older drives with single read/write streams.

HAMR

Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR) establishes a new technological foundation for recording technology. This advancement renews the progress of increasing areal density, aligning it with future data storage needs over the coming decade and beyond.

Eleven Disk

Whether you’re trying to reduce your data center’s carbon footprint or storing intellectual property in the race to cure cancer, rely on the Eleven Disk HDD to achieve your goals by optimizing storage density and power efficiency.

UltraSMR

UltraSMR enables large-scale deployments, so that massive data centers can power global social media platforms, access vast amounts of legacy financial data, or process extensive and complex genomic data.

ePMR

ePMR builds on conventional technology so that companies can keep pace with rapidly expanding volumes of data with a proven platform. Confidently store and protect medical records, deliver personalized shopping experiences, or monitor crop yields with ePMR.

ArmorCache

When it comes to handling heavy data workloads (think cloud storage services, big data, and AI systems), ArmorCache can help boost productivity by protecting data from power loss and improving performance.

OptiNAND

To close the gap between data growth and storage capacity and performance, WD pushed the innovation envelope to create OptiNAND, which integrates a high-speed flash device to create a revolutionary, reimagined storage architecture.

HelioSeal

HelioSeal is foundational technology that keeps capacity moving forward— turning possibilities into reality, such as storing and delivering customized movie recommendations to millions and capturing and using data to make cities more energy efficient.

Triple Stage Actuator

From powering AI to battle climate change to processing ML data to build smart cars, Triple Stage Actuator is a mechanical innovation that integrates with other technologies to enable organizations to ramp up storage capacity and performance.

Welcome to the Library

Imagine a data center as a library, with “hot” items near the door for instant access and “cold” archives way in the back. In between is the vast bulk of the holdings—the books and reference materials that make up the heart of the library, and the “warm” data that forms the core of the data center—all stored on HDDs.

Learn More About Our Data Storage Innovations

BLOG

Western Digital and the Foundation of the AI Data Economy

At WD, we are delivering the purpose-built data storage solutions that make the entire AI revolution possible.

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BLOG

The Promise of the Performance-Optimized HDD

Two WD breakthroughs in HDD technology tackle the problem of access density, the performance constraint that accompanies capacity gains.

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BLOG

The HAMR Future

How HAMR uses laser heating to overcome physical barriers and drive even better HDD economics.

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BLOG

HDD Innovation: Strengthening Data Resilience at Cloud Scale

WD continues its rich history of innovation, build quality, and engineered durability to boost enterprise HDD reliability and data resilience.

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Explore More of Our Data Innovation Ecosystem

Broader Innovation Initiatives

Discover how WD’s pioneering technologies extend beyond hard drives—impacting edge devices, cloud platforms, and everything in between. See how we’re shaping the future of data infrastructure.

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Enterprise-Ready Data Center Solutions

Explore advanced storage architectures engineered for demanding data center environments. Our purpose-built HDDs enable scale, performance, and efficiency for mission-critical workloads.

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High-Capacity Drives for the Modern Enterprise

Support massive data growth with our most advanced enterprise HDDs. Built for durability and performance, they’re optimized for hyperscale, cloud, and AI-driven operations.

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Experience the future of innovation today!

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Disclosures

  1. Data Growth. https://docs.timeworx.io/introduction/data-growth
  2. Data as of February 1, 2026
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