International Security Journal hears exclusive insights from Nigel Edwards, Vice President Sales & Marketing, Americas & EMEAI, Western Digital.
In an era dominated by AI, what makes HDDs continue to play such a fundamental role in modern data infrastructures?
When it comes down to it: Without HDDs, there is no AI. AI workloads, from ingestion and data preparation to training, inference and content generation, are driven by unstructured data.
Each step requires and generates a flood of data that must be efficiently stored and processed.
With the rapid expansion of AI and related tools, it is unsurprising that data is exploding. According to IDC, the annual volume of data generated is expected to more than double to 527.5 Zettabytes (ZB) by 2029. To put this in perspective, storing this data on 32TB HDDs would require nearly 16.5 billion drives.
Stacked (26.6mm high per product), they would form a tower 438,500 kilometres tall, exceeding the distance from Earth to the moon by 14%.
Data growth has surpassed human comprehension, and not all storage technologies can handle such scale cost-effectively and energy efficiently, while maintaining performance. High-capacity HDDs continue to be the bedrock of AI infrastructure and are just as essential as GPUs and CPUs for modern infrastructures.
How do HDDs support both on-premises and cloud environments?
Whether data lives on-prem or in the cloud, HDDs keep it all moving – providing the capacity, reliability and economics at scale that power the world’s data infrastructure.
Currently, nearly 80% of cloud data is stored on HDDs, according to IDC. This is because these high-capacity, cost-effective solutions underpin today’s vast unstructured data lakes, which are critical for modern AI workloads, both in the cloud and on-premises.
These datasets originate from raw archives, video content, object storage, sensors, system logs, metadata and backups. HDDs, therefore, support on-premises and cloud environments by delivering scalable, efficient storage that meets different needs.
Unmatched economics at scale – while some workloads demand the speed of SSDs, most data does not require flash performance, making it an inefficient and costly choice for bulk storage. High-capacity HDDs are ideal for storing large volumes of data economically at scale. Western Digital research shows that HDDs offer a sixfold acquisition cost advantage over flash. Ongoing innovations in HDD architecture continue to increase value per terabyte and reduce total cost of ownership (TCO) for AI at any scale – on prem or in the cloud.
Performance is best considered in context – HDDs deliver robust performance for a range of AI workloads. The TCO balance is between speed, reliability and economics at scale, which is why IT leaders should avoid the flash hype and overpaying performance they don’t need. For example, travelling from London to Birmingham by plane is possible, but cars or trains for this distance are more practical and economical. Similarly, HDDs provide performance and value for most workloads.
Innovation – HDDs are continually evolving to offer greater capacity, reliability, improved performance and increased value for organisations of all sizes. Advances in recording technologies and mechanical design have enabled ever higher storage densities. Western Digital, for instance, is the only manufacturer to commercially offer an 11-disk HDD architecture in the standard 3.5-inch form factor, reaching up to 32TB. This drop-in solution allows seamless scaling of existing infrastructures. Moving from 26TB CMR to 32TB UltraSMR HDDs to deploy one exabyte (EB) of storage can result in nearly 19% fewer racks and drives, and 18.8% lower total power consumption, including improved cooling and power usage effectiveness.
You have been a leader in pushing HDD capacity boundaries – can you tell us about some of the innovations enabling this growth?
Western Digital has a history of reinventing HDD technology to deliver more value to customers and partners.
Our latest 11-disk HDD architecture, enabling up to 32TB today, incorporates field-proven innovations such as energy-assisted perpendicular magnetic recording (ePMR), proprietary UltraSMR, and HelioSeal to enhance density, performance and efficiency.
While it sounds straightforward, achieving eleven disks was a highly complex process, involving meticulous optimisation of numerous design elements. By reclaiming microns of space in targeted areas, we successfully fit an eleventh disk into the industry-standard form factor. Yet, this is not the end for us.
We are already qualifying our first HAMR drives with hyperscalers and are expecting mass shipment in 2027. Furthermore, we are committed to pushing storage densities even further, with an ambitious roadmap that goes to 100TB+ per drive by 2030.
To achieve this, we are looking to reinvent HDDs again by innovating both technologies and materials.
As energy efficiency becomes critical in data centres, how are modern HDD technologies adapting to deliver better performance per watt while maintaining cost efficiency?
As workloads scale, so does the environmental impact of processing and storing vast amounts of unstructured data. The global data centre electricity demand is projected to more than double to around 945 terawatt hours (TWh) by 2030.
This is nearly three times the UK’s annual electricity consumption. While this presents challenges, it also offers opportunities for sustainability leadership.
To reduce power consumption and emissions, IT leaders must prioritise hardware efficiency.
High-capacity HDDs are foundational to cloud environments, and by adopting the highest capacities, customers can consolidate more capacity within the same 3.5-inch footprint, which can go a long way in terms or storage density and related power and cooling requirements.
Western Digital’s high-capacity HDDs also utilise the latest HelioSeal technology, reducing total power consumption (including energy and cooling) by up to 28% compared to standard air-filled drives. These advances contribute to greater energy efficiency in modern IT infrastructures.
You talk about “innovating with intent.” How does that mission guide your approach to enabling smooth capacity transitions and meeting future storage demands?
Western Digital’s strength lies in a customer-first philosophy. We listen, adapt and consistently deliver solutions our customers need, while paving the way for smooth capacity transitions.
From PMR and HelioSeal to ePMR and soon heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR), we have a proven track record of delivering value-add HDD technologies that will continue to push technical and mechanical boundaries.
Yet, our focus remains on minimising business risks for our customers during disruptive technology shifts. We don’t just build storage. We innovate with purpose to create and unlock real business value.
This commitment to operational and technological excellence earns trust from hyperscalers, cloud service providers, businesses of all sizes and consumers worldwide.
Finally, what trends are you seeing in the data storage space?
We are witnessing a data explosion, with several key trends shaping the future of storage systems.
AI and the resulting information surge are putting pressure on storage to deliver performance and capacity at scale. Organisations are adopting purpose-built architectures tailored to specific workloads to meet this need.
As AI evolves, infrastructures must be both high-capacity and high-performance to meet demands.
Energy efficiency remains a top priority. The environmental impact of tech is now a boardroom concern, and businesses are seeking ways to reduce power consumption.
Given these current market conditions, HDDs will remain essential for large-scale deployments.
The sheer volume of data and the need for reliable, economical and energy-efficient storage at scale makes hard drives indispensable. HDDs enable IT leaders to maximise operational efficiency and lower TCO, ensuring HDDs remain the backbone of data-driven enterprises.
In the area of resource optimisation, disaggregated storage is also an emerging trend. Previously, hyper-converged infrastructures (HCI) required scaling storage and compute together, often leading to wasted resources and higher costs.
New standards and a shift in mindsets now allow for disaggregated composable storage, enabling flexible allocation of resources. By decoupling storage and compute, IT leaders can gain the flexibility to scale independently, improving their TCO.
Finally, data sovereignty is gaining traction as well. There are many perspectives on whether companies should repatriate data from the cloud to sovereign on-prem infrastructures.
There is no universal solution, because different concerns about security, compliance, scalability, cost, performance, location and talent must all be considered.
On-premises solutions can offer greater control and predictability, making private cloud architectures attractive for those seeking enhanced data governance in an era of rapid data growth and intensive workloads.