Industry's First MAMR HDD Announced: Western Digital Reveals 18 TB DC HC550 Hard Driv

@ 2019/09/16
Western Digital has formally announced the industry’s first hard drives featuring microwave assisted magnetic recording (MAMR) technology. Kicking things off with capacities of 16 TB and 18 TB, the Ultrastar DC HC550 HDDs are designed to offer consistent performance at high capacities and will be available to interested parties in 2020.

The Western Digital Ultrastar DC HC550 18 TB 3.5-inch hard drive relies on the company’s 6th Generation helium-filled HelioSeal platform. The key technology advancement with the new drives work is MAMR technology, which WD is using to build 2TB platters. The 18 TB model, in turn, features 9 of these platters.

Since we are dealing with a brand-new platform, the Ultrastar DC HC550 also includes several other innovations, such as a new mechanical design. Being enterprise hard drives, the new platform features a top and bottom attached motor (with a 7200 RPM spindle speed), top and bottom attached disk clamps, RVFF sensors, humidity sensors, and other ways to boost reliability and ensure consistent performance. Like other datacenter-grade hard drives, the Ultrastar DC HC550 HDDs are rated for a 550 TB/annual workload, a 2.5 million hours MTBF, and are covered by a five-year limited warranty.

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