February 25, 2025 Tommi Kannisto Cloud StorageHardware

26TB CMR HDDscmr hddsdatacenternl data centerstoradera

World’s Biggest 26TB CMR HDDs Now Deployed To Our NL Location

Text "World’s Biggest 26TB CMR HDDs Now Deployed To Our NL Location" with image of the HHD

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:

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

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!

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