Challenge
Exploding data rates and the need to store more data for longer periods of time were pushing their storage infrastructure to the brink.
Solution
Upgraded existing storage systems with new Western Digital Ultrastar® Data Center HC590 hard drives to deliver more space-efficient and cost-effective storage capacity.
Key Results
By simply upgrading existing hard drives with new higher-capacity drives, the organization was able to quickly create a larger, more reliable, and cost-effective data storage environment with the following improvements:
- Simplified and more uniform storage infrastructure with the capacity to handle exponential data growth
- Increased reliability enabled by Western Digital's innovative technologies, reducing time spent managing the storage
- Flexibility to easily upgrade to higher capacity and/or more performance in the future by simply upgrading to higher-capacity HDDs
Keeping Pace with Rapid Data Growth
One of the world's largest manufacturers of soft drinks and other non-alcoholic beverages was challenged with the ability to safely store and share data on their legacy storage systems because the rate of data growth outpaced their capacity to house that data. This in itself was a challenge, but the firm faced other issues.
Image Description: A tall glass filled with a dark beverage, likely cola, with ice and a straw. The glass is condensation-covered, suggesting it's cold.
With the cost of brick-and-mortar data center facilities hitting an all-time high, the company needed more efficient utilization of their limited floorspace. According to their Chief Information Officer, "With no ability to expand our existing rack space, we required data storage solutions that are very dense, but still deliver enterprise-class reliability."
The main cause was 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 2TB¹ of capacity, the repositories were regularly reaching maximum capacity and unable to fulfill data storage services from multiple mission-critical applications.
The IT department was searching for a cost-effective solution to provide them with a much larger capacity without increasing the data center footprint. The performance and reliability also needed to be improved significantly to support the wide variety of applications seeking to read and write large amounts of data in real time.
The IT team looked at various solutions including replacing existing storage systems with new NAS and DAS storage systems, but these approaches ended up being much costlier and much more disruptive than the chosen Western Digital solution.
High-Capacity Hard Drives to the Rescue
Western Digital presented the simplest, least disruptive, and least costly solution of all the various options considered. The idea was simple: replace the hodgepodge collection of HDDs with Ultrastar® Data Center HC590 26TB hard drives.
By partnering with Western Digital, the organization was able to significantly increase their ability to store valuable data. "For this project, over 860TB of raw storage was deployed. This increased capacity has allowed our team to finally start AI projects to improve our business efficiency that had been delayed due to the lack of capacity that had been plaguing the organization for nearly 2 years", declared the CIO.
The Future of More. Plus One.
Ultrastar Data Center HC590 hard drives are based on the world's first 11-disk hard drive platform and deliver unbeaten CMR capacity of up to 26TB to help quench customer's insatiable demand for increased storage density in the 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.
Greater Capacity without Increased CapEx
"The benefit of greater storage capacity within our data center's existing footprint is that operators can increase the overall capacity without adding new storage infrastructure, which would increase our CapEx spend. In addition, maintaining the existing footprint holds power requirements and HVAC needs within current operating ranges, making the most of our OpEx spend", reported the CIO.
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 have been struggling with being capacity-constrained or years. It feels like a great burden has been lifted now that we have over 860TB more capacity available to us, without having to change our storage infrastructure!" said the Chief Information Officer.
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.
