At the moment, Western Digital offers the world’s biggest CMR hard disks in 26TB capacities. We recently deployed the first batch of these drives to our Netherlands data center.
What Are CMR And SMR Drives?
You may have heard of even bigger hard drives, such as 32TB from WD and 36TB from Seagate. While these exist, they use SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording) technology, which differs significantly from traditional CMR (Conventional Magnetic Recording) drives.
Some quick explanations:
- CMR stands for Conventional Magnetic Recording. It is the type of hard disk we are accustomed to, allowing you to randomly write to any part of the disk.
- SMR stands for Shingled Magnetic Recording. These drives use overlapping tracks to maximize storage density—much like roof shingles overlapping one another. However, this approach has a limitation: the disk is divided into zones, and each zone can only be written sequentially. There are more details to explore, but they deserve a separate blog post.
Why We Chose the 26TB HC590
For Storadera, price per terabyte (TB) is a key factor in providing cost-effective storage solutions.
While the 26TB WD Ultrastar DC HC590 doesn’t offer the absolute best price per TB compared to smaller drives, the total cost of ownership (TCO) tells a different story.
However, that’s not the whole picture. We must factor in the costs of housing these drives, purchasing the hardware, and their energy consumption. When you consider all of these factors, it makes sense to pay a small premium per TB.
Some Specs
| Model | WD Ultrastar DC HC590 |
| Model Number | WUH722626ALE6L4 |
| Interface | SATA 6Gb/s |
| Weight | 0.67kg |
| Data Buffer | 512MB |
| Sustained Transfer Speed | 288 MiB/s |
| Power Consumption Idle / Mixed | 5.6w / 8.4w |
More info here on WD spec sheet
Performance & Speed
Initial impressions on speed: it behaves exactly like our other drives. Despite recent concerns from Backblaze about “IOPS starvation” while using drives over 20TB , we haven’t observed any performance degradation.
At Storadera, we utilize Variable Block Size Technology to eliminate IOPS issues.
Notable Features: ArmorCache
ArmorCache was launched on previous generation, HC580, but it is new feature for us.
It is essentially enables write caching without the risk of data loss during power outages. If we are able to get impressive performance boost out of ArmorCache then we will publish a separate blog post.
Future-Proofing Our Storage
With data growth accelerating—especially due to AI-driven workloads—adopting the latest storage technologies is essential. By integrating high-capacity 26TB CMR HDDs, we’re ensuring that Storadera remains at the forefront of scalable and reliable cloud storage solutions.
We’re constantly optimizing our infrastructure to provide secure, high-performance, and cost-effective cloud storage. Get started with Storadera and experience the benefits of cutting-edge storage technology!
Join us and start using Storadera!