Backup Repository Upgrade: Western Digital Ultrastar HC590 Case Study

[Image: A happy dog, symbolizing the 'Gone to the Dogs' phrase.]

[Image: A Western Digital Ultrastar DC HC590 Data Center CMR Drive with 'OptiNAND™' and '26TB' labels.]

Challenge

The organization's existing backup storage infrastructure was near the end of its useful lifetime, had reached maximum capacity and was not providing the data retention and bandwidth needed for backing up its business operations data.

Solution

Upgraded existing backup repository storage systems with new Western Digital Ultrastar® Data Center HC590 hard drives.

Key Results

By simply upgrading existing hard drives with new high-capacity 26TB¹ Ultrastar DC HC590 hard drives, the organization was able to quickly create a larger, more reliable and cost effective backup environment to protect mission critical data with the following improvements:

• Data retention improved from 30 days to 180 days
• Increased performance and reliability without major changes
• Less time spent troubleshooting failed backup operations

"Doggone It! Our Backups Failed Again!"

One of the world's largest suppliers of pet products and services was having issues with their backup repository. Through its thousands of retail locations and large online presence, the company handles hundreds of thousands of transactions every day that need to be processed, stored and protected. Their existing storage solution was running out of capacity and bandwidth, resulting in poor performance, failed backup operations and insufficient protection of mission critical information. These issues seemed to be caused by storage systems that utilized a hodgepodge collection of HDDs of various sizes from various vendors. Although the storage systems themselves could deliver high performance, the diversity of HDDs mixed together was causing performance bottlenecks. In addition, with some drives providing less than 2TB of capacity, the repository could only hold up to 30 days of backed up data.

What can we do without busting the budget?

The IT department was searching for a cost-effective solution that would greatly expand the capacity of their backup repository to allow the onsite retention period to be increased to at least 90 days without increasing the data center footprint. The performance and reliability also needed to be improved significantly to support the backing up of their daily data dump efficiently in a limited backup window. The IT team evaluated various solutions including replacing the repository with backup appliances, but these solutions ended up being much costlier and much more disruptive than they could afford.

High Performance, High Capacity Backup Repository

The IT team eventually chose a much simpler approach of keeping most of the existing storage systems that made up the repository and replacing the existing patchwork of HDDs with new Ultrastar® Data Center HC590 hard drives. The integration was simple, straightforward and only took a few weeks to complete.

Upgrading the existing storage systems with new higher-capacity hard drives was a relatively easy project. Backup Administrators temporarily moved backup jobs that utilized a particular repository off to a different repository. Once cleared of all backup jobs, the storage system was shut down and all drives were replaced with 26TB Ultrastar® Data Center HC590 hard drives. Since HC590 HDDs utilize standard Conventional Magnetic Recording (CMR) technology, this task was as simple as unplugging the old drives and inserting the new drives in their place. The storage system was then restarted and the repository was formatted for use. The entire operation usually took only a few hours and could be done during the day when backup operations were not occurring. This stress free upgrade operation was repeated until all existing storage systems had been upgraded.

The upgraded backup repository provided more than six times the amount of capacity in the same footprint and greatly increased the performance and reliability of backup operations without making any significant changes to the existing Arcserve UDP (Unified Data Protection) software.

The Future of More. Plus One.

Ultrastar® Data Center HC590 hard drives are the world's first 11-disk CMR HDDs and deliver unmatched capacity of up to 26TB¹ to help quench customer's insatiable demand for increased storage density in their existing storage footprint. Western Digital created the HC590 by leveraging field-proven designs and combining them with the latest innovative technologies. Leveraging field-proven hardware and firmware designs from generations of highly successful products ensures easy qualification, seamless integration and rapid adoption while maintaining superior dependability and reliability.

The higher storage density provided by 11 disks combined with Western Digital's exclusive energy-assisted Perpendicular Magnetic Recording (ePMR) technology, which increase tracks-per-inch (TPI), allows data centers to maximize their storage efficiency.

Lower TCO with 150 more days of backed up data

Prior to implementing the new solution, the available capacity and performance of the backup repository allowed less than 30 day's worth of business transactions to be retained. The new solution provided six times more capacity, enabling the IT team to increase its data retention to 180 data days of backed up data, a six-fold improvement.

The IT team was thrilled with the increased performance and improved reliability of backup operations that were accomplished with such a simple install and virtually no software changes needed. Without the stress and extra work caused by troubleshooting daily backup failures, Backup Administrators can now upgrade their Arcserve UDP software to take advantage of new features to further increase the quality and performance of backup operations. The company strongly believes their new solution provides the business with the right level of data protection and needed performance to effectively protect their mission critical data.

Trusted Reliability, Quality and World-Class Support

As an industry-leading hard drive manufacturer, Western Digital stands behind their Ultrastar hard drives with the assurance of a five year limited warranty² and world-class support services to help create environments for data to thrive.

The lead time of the delivered Ultrastar Data Center HC590 hard drives was extremely short, and the IT team knew that it would not be a problem to get additional drives if needed in the future. The compatibility of Ultrastar hard drives provides a growth path to higher capacity when required by increased data or business operations growth.

“We see Western Digital as a partner for all our data storage needs, as they have proven again and again to be trustworthy, as well as competitively priced”, said the Director of IT Operations. “Having used many Western Digital products in the past, we were confident of the quality and reliability of their data storage solutions, which made selecting Western Digital an easy choice.”

Get Started

For more information on how Western Digital Ultrastar Data Center HC590 hard drives can enhance your data storage infrastructure and improve your business operations, please visit: www.westerndigital.com/solutions/data-center.

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MAY 2025

¹ One gigabyte (GB) = 1 billion bytes and 1 terabyte (TB) = 1 trillion bytes. Actual user capacity may be less depending on operating environment.

² See http://support.wd.com/warranty for regional specific warranty details.