- WD has 40TB hard drives already undergoing qualification with hyperscale customers
- UltraSMR and ePMR allow higher platter density without changing drive form factors
- Dual Pivot adds a second actuator without sacrificing usable drive capacity
Western Digital has disclosed plans to scale hard drives far beyond current commercial limits, starting with a 40TB model already in customer qualification.
The company says its 40TB UltraSMR ePMR drive is already in the hands of hyperscale customers, with volume production expected in the second half of 2026.
This 40TB model uses UltraSMR and ePMR technologies, which allow more data to be written per platter while maintaining the reliability levels expected in large data centers.
Dual Pivot – a key technology for scaling hard drives
Central to WD’s roadmap is Dual Pivot Technology, which introduces a second independently controlled actuator within the same 3.5-inch enclosure.
Unlike earlier dual actuator approaches, this design avoids capacity tradeoffs and does not require customer-side software modifications.
By reducing spacing between disks and enabling additional platters per drive, WD says the design supports higher capacity and improved throughput.
When combined with High Bandwidth Drive Technology, sequential input and output performance could scale up to 4x current levels.
High Bandwidth Drive Technology enables simultaneous reading and writing across multiple heads and tracks, increasing throughput without increasing power consumption.
This approach underpins WD’s claim that it can scale to 100TB hard drives by 2029 without forcing customers to replace existing infrastructure or shift workloads entirely to SSD.
According to WD’s roadmap, after shipping the 40TB ePMR drives this year, it will begin work on 40TB and 44TB HAMR-based drives.
In 2027, ePMR capacity remains at 40TB while HAMR ramps further, but by 2028, ePMR scales to 60TB, and HAMR reaches the same capacity as it moves into broader production.
The following year, 2029, HAMR-based drives will hit 100TB, with that capacity extending through 2030 and beyond.
As capacities increase, power consumption becomes a limiting factor for data centers deploying thousands of drives.
WD has acknowledged this by developing power-optimized hard drives that trade some random input and output capability for higher density and lower energy use.
These drives target training and inference workloads, and they reduce power usage by approximately 20% while maintaining sub-second access times.
It targets large datasets that must remain quickly accessible, yet are too costly to store entirely on SSD.
WD expects these power-optimized drives to enter customer qualification in 2027, aligning with the timeline for higher-capacity models beyond 40TB.
Whether these technologies can scale smoothly to 100TB while maintaining reliability and cost advantages will only become clear once wider deployments begin.
“For the past year, WD has stayed focused on execution and accelerating innovation, which has enabled us to reimagine the hard drive to meet the requirements of AI,” said Irving Tan, Chief Executive Officer at WD.
“Today, we are showcasing innovation that reflects our deep connection to our customers and how we are meeting demand for capacity, scale, quality, enhanced performance, and ease of technology adoption.”
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