Economics and Access Speed: Key Requirements for Low Capacity HDDs in the Data Center

As the industry evolves to develop purpose-built solutions for growing data storage requirements, IT managers continue to rely on lower capacity drives that are economical to acquire, yet deliver quick and reliable data access for traditional data center applications. Ultrastar® DC HC310* is a low-capacity HDD, with 6TB and 4TB offerings, that helps address economic and access requirements of many traditional IT workloads. Low capacity drives also help address architecture limitations. The Ultrastar DC HC310 is designed for traditional storage and server applications as well as distributed and scalable computing, including block and fi le storage architectures, providing fast 7,200 RPM performance and lower acquisition cost to help ease budget constraints. Ultrastar DC HC310 is offered with either 6Gb/s SATA or 12Gb/s SAS interface in a choice of 512e or 4Kn formats. A 512n option is also available on 4TB models to support legacy systems with native 512-byte block sizes.

 

Technology Innovation Delivers Effi ciency and Performance for Traditional and Legacy Systems

Ultrastar DC HC310 is based on a new 4-disk air platform design that uses conventional magnetic recording (CMR) technology in a 3.5-inch large form factor. Compared to the prior generation, Ultrastar 7K6000, the DC HC310 delivers a 12% performance boost and uses slightly larger-diameter media. It features a second-generation, dual-stage micro actuator to enhance head positioning accuracy for better drive performance. Write performance gains are also supported by Western Digital’s media cache architecture, a disk-based caching technology that provides a large cache area on the disk, which also improves reliability and data integrity during unexpected power loss. Finally, the addition of fl ash-based non-volatile cache (NVC) on both SATA and SAS models helps improve write performance. The Ultrastar DC HC310 also includes a Rebuild Assist feature, which helps dramatically reduce RAID rebuild times and maintain system performance during the rebuild process. Learn more in our Rebuild Assist technical brief.

 

Data Security with Trusted Quality, Reliability

Compliance and privacy requirements drive the need for increased data security. Ultrastar DC HC310 helps protect data from unauthorized use by offering security and encryption options. SAS models offer hardwarebased encryption options, including a Trusted Computing Group (TCG) Enterprise_A, TCG with FIPS 140-2 certifi cation, Level 2. The Ultrastar DC HC310 extends Western Digital’s long-standing tradition of reliability leadership with a 2M-hour MTBF2 rating and a 5-year limited warranty

 

Highlights

•  Excellent random and sequential performance
•  6TB and 4TB capacity points support traditional IT systems
•  Sustained transfer rate up to 255MB/s (512e/4Kn models); 233MB/s (512n models)
•  Choice of 12Gb/s SAS or 6Gb/s SATA
•  Advanced Format 4Kn and 512e models up to 6TB; 512n formatting available on 4TB to support legacy systems
•  Self-Encrypting Drive (TCG SAS) options
   

Applications & Workloads

• Distributed file systems, like Apache Hadoop®, to support Big Data analytics
• Direct & Network Attached Storage (DAS & NAS)
• RAID arrays
• Legacy applications requiring 512n format (4TB)