18 TB

Western Digital has started partner sampling of its 18 TB and 20 TB energy-assisted magnetic recording (EAMR) drives. The HDDs utilize WD's up and coming EAMR tech to further improve their storage density, allowing hyperscalers and similar customers to continue improving the density of their storage clusters. WD is on track to start volume shipments of these products sometimes in the first half of next year. According to an announcement posted by Western Digital, the new 18 TB Ultrastar DC HC550 CMR and 20 TB Ultrastar DC HC650 SMR hard drives have been shipped to a dozen of enterprise OEMs, as well as operators of hyperscale cloud datacenters. This also includes Dropbox, who has been one of the prominent backers of the host-managed SMR technology...