WD 4TB Enterprise HDD ($310)

WD announced availability of its Se line of hard drives, designed for scale-out datacenter deployments.

Built on an enterprise platform for reliable 24x7x365 data center operation, Se is tailored to deliver the combination of performance, reliability and robustness for large-scale replicated environments, mid-sized (NAS) deployment, and backup/archiving applications.

Se is an enterprise-class drive with the blend of affordability and capabilities to address the growth of semi-structured data, which is accelerating the scale-out of data centers of all sizes. Now shipping in capacities up to 4TB, it enables customers to balance their data growth challenges in multi-drive enclosures without compromising enterprise features.

"Today’s cloud datacenter installations require a cost-effective way to build large-scale storage systems, while maintaining the 24×7 reliability necessary to minimize total cost of ownership," said Richard E. Rutledge, SVP of WD’s datacenter storage business unit. "WD’s utilization of vast amounts of manufacturing and engineering data has forced us – like many other companies – to use map-reduce methodologies to effectively analyze our data. The WD Se hard drives are used in our own big datacenter, where we have gained real-world experience with Apache Hadoop."

Se drives also address the growing SMB to mid-range NAS)market. The robust enterprise design and higher workload capabilities for SMB-focused 6-bay-plus table-top NAS units and rack-mount multi-tenant NAS solutions with up to 24 bays, provide NAS integrators a complement to WD Red hard drives, which are for small NAS systems. Other data center hard drives – WD Xe and WD Re – round out the high-end of the NAS market, offering higher durability and performance for large-scale rack-based NAS systems. Together, WD Se, WD Xe, WD Re and WD Red provide a portfolio of storage devices to match every size and scale of NAS deployment.      

In addition to undergoing at least 5,000,000 hours of functional and thermal testing and over 20,000,000 hours of additional testing under actual workloads in server and storage systems, WD’s Se hard drives feature:

• A dual processor for twice the processing power to maximize performance;
• Enhanced Rotary Acceleration Feed Forward (RAFF) technology that includes sophisticated electronics to monitor the drive and correct both linear and rotational vibration in real time;
• Dual actuator technology improves head positional accuracy over the data track(s);
• StableTrac whereby the motor shaft is secured at both ends to reduce system-induced vibration and stabilize platters for accurate tracking during read and write operations delivering a consistent level of performance for applications;
• Multi-axis shock sensor automatically detects the subtlest shock events and compensates to protect the data;
• RAID-specific, time-limited error recovery (TLER) prevents drive fallout caused by the extended hard drive error-recovery processes common to desktop drives, and;
• Dynamic fly height technology where each read-write head’s fly height is adjusted in real time for optimum reliability.

Se hard drives, shipping in capacities in 2TB, 3TB and 4TB, (models: WD2000F9YZ, WD3000F9YZ, and WD4000F9YZ) are available through select distributors and resellers. MSRP for the Se hard drives range from $159.99 to $309.99 USD. They drives are covered by a five-year limited warranty.