Western Digital (WD) announced a raft of interesting new storage solutions at the ongoing Future of Memory and Storage Conference (FMS 2024). The products are intended to drive storage forward in the data center, client, automotive, and consumer segments. Three particular announcements caught our eye: a BiCS8 flash 128TB high-capacity QLC enterprise SSD (eSSD), new SD cards in 8TB capacities, and a 16TB external SSD for consumers.
Looking at the 128TB eSSD first, this very high capacity drive will be demonstrated at FMS 2024, presumably at WD's Booth 607 at the Santa Clara venue. As you'd expect in the current data center climate, this device is marketed as being of great benefit for the data demands of AI, ML, and LLMs. WD says that the new 128TB drive uses its eighth gen BiCS8 NAND and that its capacity relies on the use of QLC (four bits per cell) technology. According to WD, the new 128TB SSD is particularly useful for handling "fast AI data lakes and capacity-intensive performance applications."
Other data center storage innovations that will be highlighted by WD at FMS 2024 include "the world’s first 32TB ePMR SMR HDD" for massive data storage at scale, as well as a new 64TB eSSD for storage-intensive applications. Furthermore, a new RapidFlex interposer, which converts PCIe SSD signals to Ethernet, will be on show and demonstrated in the OpenFlex Data24 4200 NVMe-oF storage platform.
Moving on to consumer/client news, WD says there will be a variety of demos using BiCS8 performance and mainstream PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSDs. FMS 2024 attendees can see these demos involving AI PCs, gaming rigs, workstations, laptops, and more. Western Digital makes some of the best SSDs available, so we'll be looking at related announcements carefully. So far, there weren't any specific models mentioned for the popular M.2 2280 form factor, but we'll have to see what's at the show.
WD's flash memory developments are behind some big steps in single-device storage capacities for consumers. The firm boasts that it will introduce the "world’s first SanDisk 8TB SDUC UHS-I card." Also at the show, a new SanDisk 4TB microSDUC UHS-I card is set to debut. These should find appeal among ardent smartphone, drone, and camera users who would appreciate higher-capacity removable storage.
Last but not least, WD will demo its super-sized portable SSDs including capacities of up to 16TB for the first time. For now, the 16TB SanDisk Desk Drive is described as a proof of concept, but WD must be trying to commercialize such devices to benefit from hitting the market ahead of rivals.
