Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ: WDC), a data technology leader, today introduced the new Ultrastar DC SS530 SAS SSD, the company’s highest-density drive and the fastest dual-port SAS SSD in the market¹, enabling server and storage array manufacturers to offer customers substantially lower data center TCO for Fast Data applications. By doubling maximum capacity of the previous generation to 15.36TB within the same 2.5-inch 15-mm form factor, drive storage density also doubles, giving IT managers the potential to reduce the number of drives deployed, consolidate servers and open up valuable rack space for improved CapEx and OpEx costs.

Developed in partnership with Intel®, the Ultrastar DC SS530 is based on a trusted third-generation platform that has been previously qualified at most major OEMs worldwide.

It offers consistent performance and reliability to meet the rigorous demands of today’s toughest data center workloads. Designed with a 12Gb/s SAS interface, and available in capacities from 400GB to 15.36TB, the Ultrastar DC SS530 delivers up to 440,000 random read and 320,000 random write IOPS – providing rapid access to ‘hot’ enterprise data for higher productivity and operational efficiency.

“Our proven history has garnered trust from leading server and storage system providers around the world. Through these partnerships we have deep expertise in tiered storage needs as well as the importance of delivering the highest reliability, cost-efficiency and ease of system integration,” said Ulrich Hansen, vice president of Enterprise Product Management at Western Digital. “With the Ultrastar DC SS530, we are releasing another high-quality product designed to meet the needs of our customers. Built on 64L 3D TLC NAND, the Ultrastar SS530 delivers important advances in performance and power efficiency. Combining these improvements with the reliability that our Ultrastar drives have become known to represent significantly enhances the value we deliver to the market.”

“For the past decade, our partnership with Western Digital has resulted in producing world-class SAS solutions, and this new Ultrastar SAS SSD is no different,” said Bill Leszinske, vice president of strategic planning, marketing and business development at Intel Corporation. “Using Intel technology, Western Digital is able to deliver new improvements and features for their SAS SSD product line that will help their enterprise customers meet the demands for reliability, capacity and performance while reducing space, power and cooling costs.”

Additional Ultrastar DC SS530 features and specifications:

• Supports a wide range of workloads with three endurance options: 1, 3 and 10 DW/D
• Provides flexibility to tune performance and power efficiency with three power modes: 9, 11 and 14 Watts
• Helps protect data from unauthorized use and enables swift repurpose or retirement of drives with security options, including Secure Erase (SE), Instant-Secure Erase (ISE) and Self-Encrypting Drive (TCG SED). Models with TCG SED plus FIPS 140-2 validation are expected to be available in Q4 2018.

Western Digital is currently shipping Ultrastar DC SS530 samples to select OEM customers with broader availability later this quarter. The new drive further expands Western Digital’s broad range of enterprise-class storage solutions, which include high-performance NVMe™ SSD devices, innovative HelioSeal® enterprise hard disk drives as well as SAS and SATA SSD devices, IntelliFlash™ all-flash arrays, ActiveScale™ object storage systems, and Ultrastar storage servers and platforms.

Forward-Looking Statements
This news release contains certain forward-looking statements, including the expected availability, applications, benefits, capabilities, capacities, development, features, market, and performance of the company’s Ultrastar drives and the company’s partnership with Intel. There are a number of risks and uncertainties that may cause these forward-looking statements to be inaccurate including, among others: volatility in global economic conditions; business conditions and growth in the storage ecosystem; impact of competitive products and pricing; market acceptance and cost of commodity materials and specialized product components; actions by competitors; unexpected advances in competing technologies; our development and introduction of products based on new technologies and expansion into new data storage markets; risks associated with acquisitions, mergers and joint ventures; difficulties or delays in manufacturing; and other risks and uncertainties listed in the company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our most recently filed periodic report to which your attention is directed. The company undertakes no obligation to update the information in this release in the event facts or circumstances change after the date of this release.

© 2018 Western Digital Corporation or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Western Digital, the Western Digital logo, ActiveScale, G-Technology, HelioSeal, IntelliFlash, SanDisk, Tegile, Upthere, WD and Ultrastar are registered trademarks or trademarks of Western Digital Corporation or its affiliates in the US and/or other countries. Intel is a trademark of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and/or other countries. The NVMe word mark is a trademark of NVM Express, Inc. All other marks are the property of their respective owners.

As used for storage capacity, one terabyte (TB) = one trillion bytes. Total accessible capacity varies depending on operating environment. Product specifications subject to change without notice. Not all products are available in all regions of the world.

¹ Based on available SAS SSD market data for dual-port operation as of June 2018 and internal testing for Ultrastar DC SS530 performance.