Yesterday, Western Digital announced a slew of new products aimed at both mainstream consumer PCs and large enterprises with memory-intensive servers. Key innovations include two new high-capacity hard drives, one 26TB and one 22TB, as well as high-capacity server SSDs, performance-focused internal and external WD Black SSDs, and mid-range PCIe 4.0 SSDs that may end up in your next build. laptop or desktop PC.
The 26TB Ultrastar DC HC670 drives use a technology called Tiled Magnetic Recording, or SMR, to increase the amount of data that can fit on each platter at the expense of performance. WD uses SMR technology in its WD Red Pro line of hard drives, among other things, which is aimed at business rather than home users. Introduced after WD was briefly spotted using SMR technology in its ad-free hard drives, WD Red Plus drives use the more traditional Conventional Magnetic Recording (CMR) instead.
The 22TB drive uses CMR technology to increase capacity while maintaining performance. Current CMR drives mostly have a maximum capacity of 20TB at the time of this writing. Other 22TB hard drives we’ve seen from companies like Seagate have had to rely on SMR technology to achieve that capacity. This drive will appear in many Western Digital product families, including the Ultrastar, WD Purple, WD Red, and WD Gold product lines. All new discs are expected to go on sale this summer.
As far as SSDs go, capacity is declining, but enterprise-grade drives are getting closer. The UltraStar DC SN650 NVMe SSDs use the PCIe 4.0 interface and will be available in both 2.5-inch and extra-long E1.L versions with capacities up to 15.36TB each. These drives are currently in testing and will begin shipping “in the second half of 2022.”
There are two new WD Black SSDs. The SN850X SSD is a relatively minor performance upgrade to the existing WD Black SN850 SSD; it’s a high performance PCIe 4.0 SSD that WD says delivers read speeds up to 7300MB/s (compared to 7000MB/s for the SN850). The WD Black P40 Game Drive SSD is an external drive designed for gamers who don’t want to open up their consoles or gaming laptops to add more high-speed storage. It promises read speeds of up to 2000MB/s, although these speeds may require a 20Gb USB 3.2 2×2 port (or a Thunderbolt 3/4 port); Transfer speeds will be more limited for normal 5Gbps and 10Gbps USB ports. Like many accessories
The SN850X will be available in 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB capacities, with a 1TB drive starting at $189.99. The P40 External SSD is available in 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB options starting at $119.99. Both will be available this summer.
WD also announced the new PC SN740 SSD, a mid-range PCIe 4.0 SSD with read speeds up to 5150MB/s. It’s not very exciting for PC builders or those whose laptop can fit a typical 80mm M.2 SSD – the WD Black SN770 lives up to its key specs and has been available for a few months now – but the SN740 is designed primarily for PCs. companies, which means it has a good chance of ending up in your next pre-built laptop or desktop.
One thing to note about the SN740 is that it comes in a 30mm long M.2 2230 variant, which can be useful for upgrading laptops and tablets that use shorter-than-usual SSDs. Most Surface devices that support user-upgradable storage, including the Surface Pro 8, use M.2 2230 drives, but it’s hard to buy higher-capacity versions for after-the-fact upgrades because the drives are so rare. The SN740 is also aimed at PC OEMs rather than end users – ordinary people might not buy it directly – but it could be another potential aftermarket option.