Are Hard Drives Making a Comeback in AI Infrastructure?
Western Digital CEO Irving Tan uses Innovation Day as a backdrop to tout the storage mainstay'a new capabilities
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This is an AI-assisted summary of my Fortt Knox Update with WD CEO Irving Tan. View the full interview here:
Irving Tan, CEO of Western Digital (now rebranding as WD), joined Jon Fortt to explain why hard disk drives (HDDs) remain central to cloud and AI infrastructure—even as flash storage continues to advance. Tan outlined Western Digital’s transformation into a data-center-centric company, including a refreshed brand identity that reflects its focus on hyperscale customers, which now account for roughly 90% of its business.
Tan pushed back on the idea that flash will soon displace HDDs, noting that hard drives still store about 80% of data in hyperscale environments and are expected to do so for at least the next five to ten years. Their advantage lies in economics, durability under heavy write cycles, and scalability. As AI workloads drive data growth at an estimated 25% CAGR, customers prioritize capacity at scale and reliability over the underlying recording method.
A key focus was Western Digital’s roadmap from energy-assisted PMR (ePMR) to HAMR. Tan emphasized that hyperscalers are largely agnostic to the technology itself; what matters is seamless transitions, predictable reliability, and rapid capacity increases. Western Digital plans to ship 40TB ePMR drives with a path to 60TB, while HAMR is already in qualification with customers, targeting 100TB-plus drives later in the decade.
Performance and energy efficiency are also central. Western Digital is working to narrow the bandwidth and throughput gap with enterprise SSDs while reducing power consumption—critical as data centers run hotter and AI inference workloads increase. Tan also highlighted growing opportunities from data sovereignty initiatives and “neo-cloud” providers, supported by more turnkey storage platforms.
“Hard drives represent about 80% of all the data that’s stored in a hyperscale data center, and that’s going to be the case for at least the next five to ten years. … And we’re very excited, today at Innovation Day to really share some of the great innovations that we’ve been working on, in deep collaboration with [the hyperscalers], to improve performance through bandwidth enhancements, through IOPs improvements and through energy efficiency as well. That will really address some of the advantages that enterprise SSDs have had, versus HDDs. ”
Highlights
Western Digital rebrands to WD to emphasize its shift to a data-center-first company.
Roughly 90% of revenue is now tied to cloud and hyperscale customers.
HDDs still store ~80% of hyperscale data and remain core to AI storage.
Storage demand is growing at an estimated 25% CAGR driven by AI and cloud.
Customers prioritize capacity at scale and reliability over recording method.
ePMR roadmap includes 40TB drives moving toward 60TB.
HAMR is in customer qualification with a path to 100TB-plus drives.
Focus on improving HDD bandwidth, throughput, and energy efficiency.
HDDs retain advantages in heavy write durability versus enterprise SSDs.
Data sovereignty and emerging “neo-clouds” create new growth opportunities.
Excellent analysis on the economics here. The durability angle under heavy write cycles is something that gets overlooked when poeple assume SSDs will just take over everything. I remeber when hyperscalers were testing flash at scale a few years back and the costs got absurd real quick. That 25% CAGR datapoint really underscores why capacity at scale still matters more than pure speed.