Collaboration between WD and Dropbox on Ultrastar DC HC650 drives

Ultrastar DC HC650 20TB drives . These drives use SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording) technology managed by the system.

What are the different technologies used on hard drives?

The two most widely used technologies are PMR and SMR. PMR , or Perpendicular Magnetic Recording, has been used since 2005, replacing LMR (Longitudinal Magnetic Recording). This PMR technology allows for a higher density, up to 1 TB per platter. It is also known as CMR , or Classic Magnetic Recording.

Shingled Magnetic Recording ( SMR ) , developed around 2013 by Western Digital, uses a shingled recording method, resulting in higher density and therefore greater capacity. However, read and write speeds are slower. For applications requiring high transfer speeds, PMR is a better choice. SMR, on the other hand, is suitable for large storage volumes that don't require high read/write rates.

Why is Dropbox opting for SMR technology disks?

SMR drives offer lower performance than PMR drives. However, in data centers, these drives can be driven by the system or directly by disk controllers, which can partially mitigate the limitations of this technology. These DC HC650 drives benefit from the implementation of Energy-Assisted Recording (EAMR), the 5th generation of HelioSeal technology, featuring the first 3-stage actuator. Furthermore, Western Digital's SMR drives are part of Zoned Storage , an open-source platform created to ensure the scalability of SMR drives to ZNS SSDs when needed.

In fact, Dropbox is primarily looking for storage and archiving drives. Data is written only once to the hard drive and archived only rarely without modification. Furthermore, only Western Digital's DC HC650 SMR drives offer the highest capacity on the market: 20 TB. This allows for significant yield per square meter in data centers. These reasons justify Dropbox's choice of the DC HC650.

A long partnership between Dropbox and Western Digital

This is also a logical continuation of a long-standing collaboration between Western Digital and Dropbox. Indeed, according to Andrew Fong, Vice President of Engineering at Dropbox, Western Digital has supported Dropbox since the development phases of its storage platforms. He confirms that Western Digital is a key strategic partner for Dropbox, enabling the continuous improvement of its cloud infrastructure . Andrew Dorian, Vice President of Enterprise Hard Drives at Western Digital, states that Western Digital is delighted to support Dropbox in meeting the growing customer demand for cloud services.

The DC HC650 hard drive is the first on the market to offer a 20TB capacity . Other companies will surely study its various advantages and follow Dropbox's lead.