Western Digital Unleashes its Fastest, Densest and Most Flexible Lineup of IntelliFlash™ All-Flash Arrays

Western Digital (NASDAQ: WDC) today announced new additions and enhancements to its IntelliFlash data center systems portfolio, giving customers even greater choice and flexibility to design modern hybrid-cloud infrastructures that accelerate the speed of business and help extract greater value from data. By doubling available performance and density, combined with enhanced capabilities for data migration and hybrid-cloud mobility, Western Digital's IntelliFlash family of NVMe-flash, all-flash and hybrid-flash arrays delivers a superior overall value proposition for accelerating today's most demanding workloads and mission-critical applications where low latency and high data availability are paramount.

New IntelliFlash N-Series N5100 Removes the Barrier for Adoption of NVMe
The introduction of the IntelliFlash N5100 provides a new entry-level NVMe performance offering, ideally suited for customers looking for an affordable solution to accelerate business applications with NVMe. The N5100 complements the current N-series lineup of N5200 and N5800 models, offering extreme performance for data-intensive applications that require the lowest latency response times possible. The enhanced IntelliFlash OS 3.10 creates a unified framework, so mixing and matching IntelliFlash arrays for specific workloads is seamless.

Double the Performance
IntelliFlash OS 3.10 is the culmination of the company's silicon-to-systems vertical innovation efforts in flash management software designed to extract maximum performance from NVMe flash. With OS 3.10, the N5800 pushes the limits of NVMe by doubling its performance, delivering best-in-class random performance amongst fully-featured mid-range all-flash arrays with up to 1.7M IOPS and latency as low as 200µsec, resulting in significant business productivity gains through workload consolidation.¹

"Today's data-driven businesses demand that IT support a myriad of needs ranging from virtualized environments through distributed operations to real-time analytics. This is placing new levels of performance, scalability, and efficiency demands on data center infrastructure," said Scott Sinclair, senior analyst at the Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG). "For those looking to modernize their data centers and consolidate workloads, the new IntelliFlash NVMe all-flash arrays should be a serious consideration. We've had a first-hand look at the IntelliFlash OS 3.10 and the NVMe N-series and are impressed with its extremely high levels of performance, its low latency, and its robust feature set."

Double the Density
IntelliFlash OS 3.10 further improves storage economics with support for 15TB Ultrastar® SSDs, doubling the density on select IntelliFlash models. By adding 15TB SSDs, the new IntelliFlash HD2160 doubles the density of the HD-series 2RU (rack unit) offering from 184TB raw to 368TB.² IntelliFlash NVMe-based N-series and SAS-based HD-series platforms benefit from high-capacity scale-up options to deliver a substantial increase in workload consolidation while reducing overall hardware footprint. Customers can choose to scale up to 2.5PB of flash in a single array with the high-density HD2160 SAS-based all-flash array, or combine an N-series array with SAS-based expansion to achieve the right mix of performance and economics to meet the demands of a wide range of workloads. IntelliFlash systems start at 19TB raw capacity and can scale to 2.5PB raw flash capacity in 14RU.

Seamless Live Dataset Migration
It has never been easier for customers to adopt newer generations of IntelliFlash and NVMe technology as they scale to meet capacity needs. With the introduction of Live Dataset Migration, customers can seamlessly move legacy IntelliFlash data pools to the latest IntelliFlash arrays, or support other migration needs — whether on-premises or in hybrid-cloud environments. No reconfiguration or application recoding is required. Live Dataset Migration maintains high productivity and business continuity by enabling LUN migration of iSCSI/FC LUNS while the system is operating, so customers can quickly take advantage of storage that better meets the changing needs of the data.

Enhanced Hybrid-Cloud Data Mobility
IntelliFlash OS 3.10 also enables simplified data mobility to the cloud with its Amazon S3™ cloud connector for seamless AWS™ connectivity, or to other S3-enabled platforms like Western Digital's ActiveScale™ object storage system. Customers can place snapshots in AWS for hybrid-cloud configurations to protect data offsite and cost-effectively move cold or archive data off primary storage without heavy lifting.

"We have built upon our unique expertise in silicon all the way up to systems to ensure our customers have unparalleled value and performance—without compromise," said Phil Bullinger, senior vice president and general manager of Western Digital's Data Center Systems business unit. "IntelliFlash OS 3.10 is a powerful platform, making it easier with the best economics for customers to upgrade legacy storage infrastructure to NVMe—adding a new entry-level price point offering with the IntelliFlash N5100, doubling available performance and density on select models, adding expansion options for cost-effective scalability, and providing even more data mobility across hybrid cloud environments to accelerate mission-critical workloads."

Additional enhancements in IntelliFlash OS 3.10 include SMB3 optimization for Windows® File Server 2016 deployment on Hyper-V, simplified VMware® deployments and management of VMware vSphere® datastores, enriched administrative features such as Powershell Toolkit for automating Windows storage, and the robust IntelliCare™ predictive-analytics health monitoring service.

Become an Enterprise Channel Partner
Today, Western Digital also 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 a customer challenges while helping them grow their business and maximize profitability.

In addition to the IntelliFlash family, Western Digital's full data center portfolio includes the ActiveScale cloud object storage system, OpenFlex™ NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe-oF™) open composable infrastructure; Ultrastar storage servers and storage platforms; Ultrastar memory extension drive; and its family of Ultrastar data center-class HDDs and SSDs.

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Resources:
Blog: Fast Data Just Got Faster with IntelliFlash 3.10
ESG Technical Validation: IntelliFlash N-Series Performance Report
Western Digital Named a Visionary in Gartner Magic Quadrant for Solid-State Arrays
Product Page: IntelliFlash NVMe-flash, all-flash and hybrid-flash arrays

About Western Digital
Western Digital creates environments for data to thrive. 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.

¹ Double the performance based on read and mixed workloads. Actual performance and improvement may vary based on environment and workload.  

² One TB equals one trillion bytes and one PB equals 1,000TB when referring to storage capacity.  Accessible capacity will vary based on operating environment.

©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 and NVMe-oF word marks are trademarks of NVM Express, Inc. VMware and VMware vSphere are registered trademarks or trademarks of VMware, Inc. in the U.S. and/or other jurisdictions.  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, 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.