Data Center Performance Requirements for HDDs
Larger capacity hard drives provide better TCO by delivering more storage per slot. This is especially true when storing large amounts of cooler data. However, many applications contain warm data that gets accessed more frequently. Traditional single actuator drives access this data from one location at a time. Performance is dictated by how fast the mechanical actuator can move from one location to another. By splitting the single actuator into two, a dual actuator drive can now read or write two locations at once. Access density is improved by increasing IOPs per TB of data stored.

Trusted Reliability and Quality for Data at Scale
The DC HS760 meets modern data center reliability requirements with 2.5M MTBF⁵ (projected) and a 5-year limited warranty. It is performance-optimized for heavy application workloads and are designed to handle workloads up to 500TB per year per LUN. Trust Western Digital and the Ultrastar DC HS760 hard drive to deliver high performance with high capacity for your demanding data center applications.

Dual Actuator Increases HDD Performance
The Ultrastar DC HS760 is Western Digital’s 20TB⁴ dual actuator CMR HDD that is based off the proven single actuator Ultrastar DC HC560. It leverages Western Digital’s 2.2TB/disk areal density leadership to deliver both high performance and high capacity in a data center drive.

The DC HS760 implements a dual actuator by integrating two independent actuators that can simultaneously read or write data in parallel, providing up to twice the sequential performance. The drive is accessed via single port SAS and will present itself as a dual logical unit number (LUN) SAS device. Each 10TB LUN shows up as an independent storage volume under Linux® for a total of 20TB. The host application manages file placement between the two volumes to maximize IOPS, improving overall access density (IOPS/TB).

Dual actuator benefits¹ include:
- Up to 2x sequential throughput
- Up to 1.7x random performance²
- Up to 37% more power efficiency³
 

OptiNAND™ Technology
The DC HS760 utilizes proven OptiNAND™ technology, proven ePMR technology, a triple-stage actuator and utilizes HelioSeal® technology which has been shipped in over 100 million drives. The Ultrastar DC HS760 is the 3rd platform with OptiNAND technology, which integrates an iNAND® Universal Flash Storage (UFS) Embedded Flash Drive (EFD) with traditional spinning disk media.

ArmorCache™ is a feature enabled by OptiNAND that combines the performance of write cache enabled (WCE) mode and the data protection of write cache disabled (WCD) mode, offering the best of both scenarios. When operating in WCE mode, ArmorCache ensures that the DRAM cache will be safely written in event of an EPO and no data is lost. When operating in WCD mode, the drive will ensure that all user data in DRAM is safely written upon EPO, and the drive will operate with WCE-equivalent performance. Performance and data protection are now comparable across both WCE and WCD modes.