WD Ultrastar DC HC550 18TB 3.5-inch SAS 12Gb/s 7200 RPM Enterprise Nearline HDD

The WD Ultrastar DC HC550 18TB is a 3.5-inch enterprise nearline hard drive engineered for high-capacity, write-intensive datacenter environments. Built on Western Digital's ePMR (Energy-Assisted Perpendicular Magnetic Recording) technology, the HC550 achieves 18TB of formatted storage capacity on a helium-sealed platform, reducing internal turbulence and enabling higher areal density while maintaining consistent performance at 7,200 RPM. The SAS 12Gb/s dual-port interface delivers reliable, low-latency connectivity suited to demanding enterprise storage fabrics, with a 512MB cache buffer supporting sustained throughput for large sequential workloads.

The HC550 is rated for up to 2.5 million hours mean time between failures (MTBF) and supports a sustained transfer rate of up to 269 MB/s, making it well-suited for nearline storage tiers where capacity and data integrity take priority alongside consistent throughput. The drive incorporates Western Digital's RAFF (Rotational Acceleration Feed Forward) technology to compensate for rotational vibration in multi-drive enclosures, along with 512e or 4Kn sector options to align with modern storage architecture requirements. An annualized workload rating of 550TB per year reflects the drive's readiness for continuous enterprise operation.

Designed for deployment in hyperscale datacenters, cloud storage platforms, and AI data lake infrastructure, the Ultrastar DC HC550 supports demanding environments where petabyte-scale capacity density, data durability, and interoperability with enterprise SAS HBAs and expanders are essential. The drive ships in SE (Self-Encrypting Drive) and non-SED configurations, with the SAS variant supporting dual-port failover for high-availability storage architectures. Omnixon Global supplies the HC550 (WUH721818AL5204) to enterprise buyers across the UAE, GCC, EMEA, and APAC regions.

Ideal for

• Hyperscale and cloud object storage platforms requiring maximum capacity density per rack unit with SAS 12Gb/s fabric compatibility
• AI and machine learning data lake infrastructure where large unstructured datasets demand high sequential throughput and multi-drive nearline storage
• Active archive and cold-tier storage systems in media and entertainment, genomics, and financial services requiring petabyte-scale retention
• Enterprise NAS and SAN arrays in high-availability configurations leveraging the dual-port SAS interface for redundant path failover
• Video surveillance and analytics back-end storage requiring continuous write workloads within a 550TB/year endurance envelope
• Backup and disaster recovery target appliances where high per-drive capacity lowers hardware footprint and operational complexity

Technical specifications

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