{"id":76733,"date":"2026-02-04T23:49:19","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T02:49:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tech.einnews.com\/article\/889512502"},"modified":"2026-02-04T23:49:19","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T02:49:19","slug":"western-digital-teases-new-high-bandwidth-hdd-technology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/2026\/02\/04\/western-digital-teases-new-high-bandwidth-hdd-technology\/","title":{"rendered":"Western Digital Teases New High-Bandwidth HDD Technology"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s been many years since hard drives were relevant for cutting-edge storage performance, but Western Digital’s new High Bandwidth HDD design<\/a> could be the fastest hard drives yet. <\/p>\n

I’ll always remember building my first gaming PC with a 36GB Western Digital Raptor hard drive. Sure, it made a grinding noise when in use, but it booted Windows XP in under 15 seconds. Even conventional hard drives are much faster than that 10,000 RPM monster these days, and PCIe SSDs are many 10s of times more speedy<\/a>. But WD’s new hard drive design could close that performance gap, at least a little.<\/p>\n

The company showed off two new hard drive designs at its recent Innovation Day<\/a>: The High Bandwidth Drive Technology (HBDT) adds secondary read and write heads to the actuator, allowing for a doubling of overall bandwidth compared with conventional hard drives; and Dual Pivot Technology fits another independent actuator, so it has two arms accessing the drive at the same time, doubling conventional bandwidth and sequential I\/O performance. <\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"PCMag <\/div>\n
You May Also Like<\/strong> <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n

window.videoEmbeds = window.videoEmbeds || []; let data = {}; data.excoPlayListId = ‘68408b61a852ebf5b843845e’; data.excoPlayListVideos = {“0bd54165-77e0-47bb-b1eb-e5ec59999624″:”01F1gviBeR6nLSx73Tk6jCq”,”2a3d684c-229d-5392-a907-821ea9aca6ab”:”01iXQYuFw0pOWifK3JLyQZz”,”2eb5af01-a120-475f-ad63-2aae67c30c2a”:”04LjmPGvt4eEeDAbUp5rn48″,”3a4fd124-4d3b-4c69-bd65-a3b1a2b8f085″:”055OGhV3wR4tfGkNLFn0CAn”,”5eaa2bda-c81e-4769-8eda-51b0692d4ddf”:”00WKrEpfy6vJS3tsvsGhwWw”,”61a32626-6a80-5286-96b4-0704cef02dde”:”04acRv7w1bjcU0T0bqLOsN0″,”6df505d7-e171-42f4-81be-199fa105515c”:”05zKSkipqwkbKg1NQDalkEA”,”70938ad5-5714-5bc4-ada6-eef2e4620355″:”01DcFntSgbY5CxEdfYCkb2h”,”7e022050-b5ad-4910-b192-19e5707c7c7d”:”02HXQoNh05NHI3RHAU0XS4w”,”82643d75-d262-452a-9264-311fa52a901d”:”04exsD2HVns3ywvuz1q28ya”,”881cbe37-286c-4431-b1c0-3168f4524734″:”00R5tj5pQw2cgXdoT4AYKyL”,”97d8bdb4-29f0-44e7-862a-49cd78ca6f72″:”03aGAfSIzm2Kf2FqJuseiY9″,”a9fd2b46-e1b5-48b7-b9d9-8a842806f35f”:”017Zg0HsnUyZAeyH69DgTZr”,”b0699071-e20f-4d24-b026-8c919b46c22f”:”03oq64VPipOsmGYsYP3vIKn”,”b127cfd4-c0b3-56f1-8f89-134feec53894″:”00g6nIt0vW83J73jL6DkvpL”,”b57cad3a-091d-4687-8032-93e1ae699163″:”056VqqCbVLWkTDFaXO8NSNn”,”c59096ea-04ad-42fa-92bf-3b10ff1f0fec”:”00eFnLcwjzoaMrHeyvvwZiM”,”ce140d54-aeed-4d58-956f-c077bf89a7df”:”02GEqYcq4HK09Zd3Q6DfbJN”,”ea29551a-0761-49f9-9396-55e0261858f0″:”04fFCQQLJmsjLszRTr6jNha”,”f308161f-9777-551a-876e-117724a908fc”:”06v3q4ynI42vzIJkcbNrOM8″}; window.videoEmbeds.push({ elemId: ‘video-container-68408b61a852ebf5b843845e’, data: data, videoPlayerType: ‘related-contextual’, variation: ‘INJECTED’, }); <\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

In a blog post<\/a>, Reed Martin, WD’s senior manager of global product marketing said that “combining HBDT (2-track) and dual pivot can boost throughput from 300MB\/s to 1.2GB\/s\u2014a 4x increase.”<\/p>\n

The technologies haven’t been used in conjunction, but Western Digital is testing it and expects it could increase hard drive performance by up to eight times by combining multiple actuators and multiple read\/write heads on each actuator.<\/p>\n

With the top hard drives of today, including external hard drives<\/a>, having maximum transfer rates around 250 MBps, a doubling of performance would put them in the realm of classic SATA III SSDs. Quadruple it, and you’re into the kind of speeds you see from mid-tier external SSDs<\/a>. If WD can eight times it, though, those hard drives would have sustained read\/and write performance that’s not far off entry-level PCIe 3 SSDs.<\/p>\n

\n
\n

Recommended by Our Editors<\/h3>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\"An <\/div>\n

<\/a> <\/p>\n

SSD vs. HDD: What’s the Difference?<\/a> <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n
\"Hard <\/div>\n

<\/a> <\/p>\n

Memory Shortage Now Wreaking Havoc on Hard Drive Prices, Too<\/a> <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n
\"Sandisk's <\/div>\n

<\/a> <\/p>\n

Sandisk Kicks Off CES 2026 by Rebranding WD’s Blue and Black SSDs As ‘Optimus’<\/a> <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The caveat there is that it’s only for sustained read and write performance and even then only with sequential data. Defragging hard drives still makes a big difference. Random access performance would still be many orders of magnitude slower than that of modern SSDs. This isn’t going to make hard drives competitive with SSDs again. That ship has well and truly sailed, outside of cost per terabyte at the extreme end.<\/p>\n

But for those storing huge libraries of photos and videos, enterprise and business servers and workstations, as well as data centers, this is game-changing stuff. WD sees this combination of technologies as being a worthy competitor for cheap, QLC NAND-based SSDs. We shall see.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
\n

About Our Expert<\/h2>\n
\n
\n
\n
\"Jon <\/p>\n
\n
Jon Martindale<\/div>\n
Contributor<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\n
\n
Experience<\/div>\n
\n

Jon Martindale is a tech journalist from the UK, with 20 years of experience covering all manner of PC components and associated gadgets. He’s written for a range of publications, including ExtremeTech, Digital Trends, Forbes, U.S. News & World Report, and Lifewire, among others. When not writing, he’s a big board gamer and reader, with a particular habit of speed-reading through long manga sagas. <\/p>\n

Jon covers the latest PC components, as well as how-to guides on everything from how to take a screenshot to how to set up your cryptocurrency wallet. He particularly enjoys the battles between the top tech giants in CPUs and GPUs, and tries his best not to take sides.<\/p>\n

Jon’s gaming PC is built around the iconic 7950X3D CPU, with a 7900XTX backing it up. That’s all the power he needs to play lightweight indie and casual games, as well as more demanding sim titles like Kerbal Space Program. He uses a pair of Jabra Active 8 earbuds and a SteelSeries Arctis Pro wireless headset, and types all day on a Logitech G915 mechanical keyboard.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\n
Latest By Jon Martindale<\/div>\n