Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR) enables data center expansion
The modern data center demands highest capacity HDDs to cost effectively expand storage and lower the total cost of ownership (TCO). SMR HDDs, and more specifically host-managed SMR (HM-SMR), enables higher capacities by overlapping the physical tracks on the media during write operations. A HM-SMR HDD results in higher capacity compared to a conventional magnetic recording (CMR) HDD of the same generation. While this requires software changes to properly exploit the capacity advantage of HM-SMR, the most common TCO metrics can be improved by utilizing SMR HDDs.
 

UltraSMR enables 26TB HDDs
Ultrastar DC HC670 integrates a suite of technologies on a 10-disk platform to create a new class of HDDs. 26TB¹ is achieved by combining Western Digital’s OptiNAND™ technology with UltraSMR, energy-assist magnetic recording (EAMR), a 2nd generation triple-stage actuator (TSA), and proven HelioSeal® technology.
Combining OptiNAND with proprietary firmware that leverages HDD system-level hardware advancements, Western Digital’s new UltraSMR technology introduces large block encoding along with an advanced error correction algorithm that increases tracks-per-inch (TPI) to enable higher capacity. The result is Western Digital’s new 26TB Ultrastar DC HC670 UltraSMR HDD that delivers up to 2.6TB per platter, offering 18% more capacity for cloud customers optimizing their stacks to take advantage of the benefits of SMR.