Western Digital Ultrastar DC HC550 16TB 7200RPM SAS 12Gb/s 3.5-inch Enterprise HDD

The Western Digital Ultrastar DC HC550 16TB (WUH721816AL5204) is a 3.5-inch enterprise hard disk drive engineered for high-density, 24/7 datacenter deployments. Built on HelioSeal technology, the drive is hermetically sealed with helium to reduce internal turbulence, lower power consumption, and enable nine-disk platters within a standard form factor — delivering 16TB of raw capacity while maintaining the rotational stability required for sustained enterprise workloads. The SAS 12Gb/s interface provides dual-port redundancy and the higher command queue depths demanded by enterprise storage controllers, making it well suited for direct-attached storage arrays, SAN fabrics, and high-availability configurations.

Operating at 7200 RPM with a 512MB cache buffer, the HC550 is optimized for mixed read/write workloads at an annualized workload rating of 550TB per year. The drive supports a rated MTBF of 2.5 million hours and incorporates Rotational Vibration Safeguard (RVS) sensors to maintain performance integrity in dense multi-drive chassis environments. Western Digital's proprietary ArmorCache technology provides write-cache protection against unexpected power loss, while a PowerChoice feature allows configurable idle power states to align with data-center energy management policies.

The Ultrastar DC HC550 is positioned for scale-out object storage platforms, Hadoop and analytics clusters, AI and machine learning training data repositories, video surveillance archives, and cloud-infrastructure build-outs. Its combination of high areal density, dual-port SAS reliability, and a 550TB/year workload envelope makes it a compelling choice for enterprise architects specifying high-capacity nearline storage tiers in UAE, GCC, EMEA, and APAC datacenters.

Ideal for

• Hyperscale and private cloud object storage nodes requiring maximum raw capacity per rack unit
• AI and machine learning training data lakes where large sequential datasets must be stored cost-effectively at scale
• High-density NAS and SAN nearline tiers for enterprise backup, archival, and long-term data retention
• Video surveillance and media asset management repositories demanding sustained write throughput across multi-drive enclosures
• Big data analytics clusters (Hadoop, Spark) storing cold or warm datasets on high-capacity nearline drives
• Content delivery and streaming platform storage back-ends requiring reliable, high-capacity 24/7 operation

Technical specifications

Available from Omnixon Global. Submit an RFQ and our team will confirm configuration and availability for your order.