Western Digital Accelerates Software-Defined Workloads with Two New Ultrastar® Storage Server Platforms

Western Digital (NASDAQ: WDC) today announced two new additions to its data center systems portfolio – the Ultrastar Serv24-4N four-node NVMe all-flash, and the Ultrastar Serv24+6 hybrid storage server platforms. These flexible and scalable storage server building blocks provide IT architects, cloud providers and system integrators with extremely fast, dense and efficient shared storage with compute for SDS, HCI and edge environments.

As organizations contend with the never-ending tsunami of data, more and more IT leaders are turning toward cost-effective software-defined infrastructure, like SDS or HCI, to manage the complexities of storing, accessing, sharing and protecting data at scale. With most SDS and HCI benefits well known — such as lower cost, system scalability and hardware choice — industry analyst firm IDC predicts that the SDS market will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 14.7 percent through 2022. The HCI market is anticipated to grow at an even faster rate of 25.2 percent through 2022, according to IDC. Addressing these growing market segments, Western Digital's expanding portfolio of Ultrastar Serv platforms address the needs of a variety of use cases and environments, including remote office/branch offices (ROBO), virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), edge/IoT and video surveillance environments, test/development environments, and to facilitate data backup and disaster recovery (DR).

Ultrastar Serv24-4N Four-node NVMe All-Flash Storage Server Designed for HCI and Scale-Out SDS
Western Digital's Ultrastar Serv24-4N is designed for high-performance HCI deployments for data-intensive applications that depend on fast, efficient storage. It combines high compute density with an optimized design that maximizes the speed of NVMe SSDs. Key highlights include:

• Features four server nodes with each having dual CPUs with full, 24 PCIe lanes to six SSDs, extracting the full performance potential of NVMe.

• Includes Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processor CPUs and chipset. Core count and power can be selected to match data workloads and meet data center efficiency requirements.

• Maximizes networking performance with three x16 PCIe slots per node.

• Delivers high availability and enterprise-class reliability with capacities up to 184TB raw.

Ultrastar Serv24+6 High-density Storage Server Balancing Capacity and Performance for SDS
Ultrastar Serv24+6 is a powerful, high-density 2U hybrid storage server designed for data-intensive applications. Delivering the right balance of capacity and compute performance, its ideal SDS use cases include file services, media streaming, video surveillance, IoT data gathering, backup and archive, and big data analytics. Key highlights include:

• Maximizes capacity density with an innovative solution, providing 24 HDD bays in just 2U with the option of four additional HDD bays in the rear for a maximum capacity of up to 420TB raw.

• Offers a choice of the latest high-performance Intel Xeon Scalable Processors, allowing customers to match processing capability to their workloads and power budget.

• Provides the flexibility to choose SAS or SATA HDDs to balance application performance and cost requirements.

• Delivers hybrid support with up to six NVMe SSDs in the rear bays for a data-acceleration tier to improve application performance.

Both the Ultrastar Serv24-4N and Ultrastar Serv24+6 storage servers come with a five-year limited warranty. The Ultrastar Serv24-4N will be available this quarter in multiple configurations through the company's worldwide network of distribution and channel partners. The Ultrastar Serv24+6 is sampling now and will be available in volume by September.

"Our goal is to help our customers architect highly efficient and cost-effective infrastructures to get the most value from their data—all without sacrificing performance, reliability or data availability," said Phil Bullinger, senior vice president and general manager of Western Digital's Data Center Systems business unit. "Whether customers are working with big data or fast data in small environments or in hyperscale cloud data centers, our complete portfolio of purpose-built storage solutions supports the most demanding performance and capacity needs while still providing the best TCO. Our new Ultrastar Serv platforms extend the value we offer to customers, enabling them to more effectively manage the complex world of data."

"We have significantly deepened our customer base in the machine learning and HPC markets over the last year with our joint solution on Western Digital's NVMe platforms and the Weka File System. Now, with their expanded portfolio of platforms, we're fueling innovation and pushing boundaries across a wide spectrum of applications requiring ultra-high file system performance running on Western Digital's Ultrastar Serv24-4N NVMe storage server," said Barbara Murphy, vice president of marketing and products at WekaIO. "The WekaIO software, along with Western Digital's NVMe platforms, delivers incredible economics driven by the right balance of high-performance flash and the highly efficient cost of petabyte-scale cloud object storage."

"Customers need both convenience and maximum choice in scale-out block storage systems for ultra-demanding applications like transactional databases, data analytics, AI and machine learning. Western Digital provides both benefits with the option of incorporating Excelero's NVMesh® in its Ultrastar Serv24-4N storage server," said Lior Gal, CEO and co-founder of Excelero, a software-defined block storage disruptor. "As the fastest scale-out NVMe block storage on the market, NVMesh running on the Ultrastar Serv24-4N with its NVMe drives helps IT teams deploy and scale fast and efficiently as underlying demand grows."

Become an Enterprise Channel Partner
Western Digital also recently launched its enhanced Enterprise Partner Program with streamlined benefits, discounts and programs for its IntelliFlash™, ActiveScale™ and Ultrastar Platform brands. Solution and cloud providers are encouraged to apply for the award-winning Western Digital Enterprise Partner Program to access the comprehensive selection of go-to-market resources and sales incentives. With Western Digital's broad data center portfolio, partners can easily create solutions and services to solve customer challenges while helping them grow their business and maximize profitability.

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About Western Digital
Western Digital creates environments for data to thrive. As a leader in data infrastructure, the company is driving the innovation needed to help customers capture, preserve, access and transform an ever-increasing diversity of data. Everywhere data lives, from advanced data centers to mobile sensors to personal devices, our industry-leading solutions deliver the possibilities of data. Western Digital data-centric solutions are comprised of the Western Digital®, G-Technology™, SanDisk® and WD® brands.

As used for storage capacity, one terabyte (TB) = one trillion bytes. Total accessible capacity varies depending on operating environment. Product specifications subject to change without notice. Not all products are available in all regions of the world.

©2019 Western Digital Corporation or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Western Digital, the Western Digital logo, G-Technology, SanDisk, WD, ActiveScale, IntelliFlash, OpenFlex, and Ultrastar are registered trademarks or trademarks of Western Digital Corporation or its affiliates in the US and/or other countries. The NVMe word mark is a trademark of NVM Express, Inc. All other marks are the property of their respective owners. Product specifications subject to change without notice. Pictures shown may vary from actual products. Not all products are available in all regions of the world.

Forward-Looking Statements
This news release contains certain forward-looking statements, including statements regarding the capabilities, features and performance of the company's data technologies, devices, platforms and systems. There are a number of risks and uncertainties that may cause these forward-looking statements to be inaccurate including, among others: volatility in global economic conditions; business conditions and growth in the storage ecosystem; impact of competitive products and pricing; market acceptance and cost of commodity materials and specialized product components; actions by competitors; unexpected advances in competing technologies; our development and introduction of products based on new technologies and expansion into new data storage markets; risks associated with acquisitions, mergers and joint ventures; difficulties or delays in manufacturing; and other risks and uncertainties listed in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our most recently filed periodic report to which your attention is directed. The company undertakes no obligation to update the information in this release in the event facts or circumstances change after the date of this release.