Data Center


Inside CERN’s Exabyte Data Center  

Inside CERN’s Exabyte Data Center  

Image of LHC tunnel during LS2n by Brice, M. courtesy of CERN Tucked beneath the countryside on the outskirts of Geneva lies the world’s largest and most powerful particle-smashing machine: the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).  Run by the European Organization for Nuclear Research, the LHC probes the universe’s origins by recreating the conditions that existed just […]

April 30, 2024 • 7 min read Technology

A Green Start: The Data Center’s Role in Climate Change 

A Green Start: The Data Center’s Role in Climate Change 

Just as factories fueled the growth of the Industrial Revolution, the data center is at the core of the Information Age. Entertainment, public services, and private communications are all stored or mediated by it, and as more users join virtual spaces, the demand for fast and reliable digital services grows.  But, data centers come with […]

February 27, 2024 • 6 min read Data

Have Data Centers Reached the SMR HDD Tipping Point?

Have Data Centers Reached the SMR HDD Tipping Point?

Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR) hard drives (HDDs) have quietly existed for nearly a decade. Yet, as with many innovations, their journey to widespread acceptance has been gradual. SMR HDDs have seemingly only tiptoed into the data center. Now, something has changed.   Western Digital CEO, David Goeckeler, recently shared that the company’s 26 terabyte (TB) UltraSMR […]

November 21, 2023 • 9 min read Technology

NVMe-oF Full Speed Ahead

NVMe-oF Full Speed Ahead

As users expect fast response times from increasingly massive amounts of data, data center architects at cloud service providers and OEMs are furthering their investment in NVMe™ and NVMe-oF™ into their IT infrastructures. Western Digital launched its next step in NVMe and NVMe-oF with enhanced versions of its OpenFlex™ Data24 NVMe-oF storage platform, next-generation RapidFlex […]

August 8, 2023 • 6 min read Products

How Distinguished Engineer John Contreras Discovered an Unlikely Career Path

How Distinguished Engineer John Contreras Discovered an Unlikely Career Path

John Contreras, a distinguished engineer in Western Digital’s hard disk drive (HDD) CTO group, always knew he liked to build things, from electronic amplifiers and logic circuits to skateboard ramps. But he wouldn’t be the distinguished engineer he is today if not for influential high school math teachers and a fluke skateboarding accident resulting in […]

December 27, 2022 • 7 min read People

DNA Data Storage: The Next Chapter

DNA Data Storage: The Next Chapter

DNA — nicknamed “nature’s storage medium” — has accurately stored the instruction sets for all life on Earth for billions of years. But it also may hold the keys to managing explosive data growth and storing archival data for generations to come. The idea of storing digital data in DNA dates back more than a […]

August 16, 2022 • 5 min read Technology