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Will Next-Gen HAMR & ePMR Drives Give Western Digital a Storage Edge?
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Key Takeaways
Western Digital is investing in ePMR and HAMR to meet rising AI, cloud and data center storage demand.
WDC shipped 3.5M ePMR drives and delivered 215 exabytes in Q2, up 22% year over year.
WDC roadmap targets 40TB ePMR drives by 2026 and HAMR scaling to 100TB by 2029.
The global data explosion, driven by AI, cloud computing and hyperscale infrastructure, is pushing storage technologies to their physical and economic limits. In this context, Western Digital Corporation (WDC - Free Report) is investing heavily in a dual-track innovation strategy centered on ePMR and HAMR. It benefits from growing exabyte storage demand from AI, cloud and data centers, which increases the need for high-capacity hard drives, where WDC specializes. Moreover, HAMR and ePMR allow WDC to produce higher-capacity drives, which carry higher margins and stronger enterprise demand.
Successfully launching these next-generation drives helps it stay competitive with Seagate Technology Holdings plc (STX - Free Report) and grow its market share in data center storage. WD is advancing areal density and accelerating its ePMR and HAMR roadmaps while promoting the adoption of higher-capacity and UltraSMR drives. It shipped more than 3.5 million units of the latest-generation ePMR drives in the fiscal second quarter and delivered 215 exabytes, up 22% year over year. The company is strengthening its HAMR development, expanding UltraSMR platforms with partners and securing long-term purchase agreements with major customers through 2026–2028, signaling strong demand visibility and customer confidence.
WD has unveiled a roadmap focused on AI-driven storage demand, emphasizing its dual-path ePMR and HAMR technologies to deliver higher-capacity, power-efficient drives, with 40TB ePMR drives expected in 2026 and HAMR scaling to 100TB by 2029. It is also developing new performance technologies like High Bandwidth Drive and Dual Pivot to enhance HDD throughput for AI workloads. Therefore, if execution stays on track, HAMR and ePMR together could provide WDC with a durable advantage in the AI-driven data economy.
Next-Gen Storage Race: Where Does WDC Stand?
Seagate witnesses solid demand, led by data center markets, with sustained growth in high-capacity nearline drives across global cloud customers and improving enterprise edge demand. The shift to higher-capacity HAMR drives is expected to improve margins and cost efficiency. It highlighted strong momentum in HAMR adoption in 2025, with Mozaic-based 3TB-per-disk HAMR drives shipping to its first CSP. Quarterly HAMR shipments surpassed 1.5 million units by year-end and continue to increase. Recently, it introduced its Mozaic 4+ platform, a breakthrough storage technology built on HAMR. Mozaic 4+ platform enables up to 44TB drives and supports its path toward 100TB HDDs.
Strength in the flash business, the Public Cloud segment and emerging opportunities in cloud/AI are driving NetApp, Inc. (NTAP - Free Report) . Recently, NetApp launched the next generation of its EF-Series storage systems, introducing the EF50 and EF80 to support highly performance-intensive workloads at scale. These new systems are designed to address rising demand from AI, HPC and transactional database environments, while also catering to emerging use cases such as sovereign AI clouds and AI-driven manufacturing. The growing adoption of AI workloads is also boosting demand for high-performance flash storage. NetApp expects fiscal 2026 to be a pivotal year for enterprise AI storage.
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Will Next-Gen HAMR & ePMR Drives Give Western Digital a Storage Edge?
Key Takeaways
The global data explosion, driven by AI, cloud computing and hyperscale infrastructure, is pushing storage technologies to their physical and economic limits. In this context, Western Digital Corporation (WDC - Free Report) is investing heavily in a dual-track innovation strategy centered on ePMR and HAMR. It benefits from growing exabyte storage demand from AI, cloud and data centers, which increases the need for high-capacity hard drives, where WDC specializes. Moreover, HAMR and ePMR allow WDC to produce higher-capacity drives, which carry higher margins and stronger enterprise demand.
Successfully launching these next-generation drives helps it stay competitive with Seagate Technology Holdings plc (STX - Free Report) and grow its market share in data center storage. WD is advancing areal density and accelerating its ePMR and HAMR roadmaps while promoting the adoption of higher-capacity and UltraSMR drives. It shipped more than 3.5 million units of the latest-generation ePMR drives in the fiscal second quarter and delivered 215 exabytes, up 22% year over year. The company is strengthening its HAMR development, expanding UltraSMR platforms with partners and securing long-term purchase agreements with major customers through 2026–2028, signaling strong demand visibility and customer confidence.
WD has unveiled a roadmap focused on AI-driven storage demand, emphasizing its dual-path ePMR and HAMR technologies to deliver higher-capacity, power-efficient drives, with 40TB ePMR drives expected in 2026 and HAMR scaling to 100TB by 2029. It is also developing new performance technologies like High Bandwidth Drive and Dual Pivot to enhance HDD throughput for AI workloads. Therefore, if execution stays on track, HAMR and ePMR together could provide WDC with a durable advantage in the AI-driven data economy.
Next-Gen Storage Race: Where Does WDC Stand?
Seagate witnesses solid demand, led by data center markets, with sustained growth in high-capacity nearline drives across global cloud customers and improving enterprise edge demand. The shift to higher-capacity HAMR drives is expected to improve margins and cost efficiency. It highlighted strong momentum in HAMR adoption in 2025, with Mozaic-based 3TB-per-disk HAMR drives shipping to its first CSP. Quarterly HAMR shipments surpassed 1.5 million units by year-end and continue to increase. Recently, it introduced its Mozaic 4+ platform, a breakthrough storage technology built on HAMR. Mozaic 4+ platform enables up to 44TB drives and supports its path toward 100TB HDDs.
Strength in the flash business, the Public Cloud segment and emerging opportunities in cloud/AI are driving NetApp, Inc. (NTAP - Free Report) . Recently, NetApp launched the next generation of its EF-Series storage systems, introducing the EF50 and EF80 to support highly performance-intensive workloads at scale. These new systems are designed to address rising demand from AI, HPC and transactional database environments, while also catering to emerging use cases such as sovereign AI clouds and AI-driven manufacturing. The growing adoption of AI workloads is also boosting demand for high-performance flash storage. NetApp expects fiscal 2026 to be a pivotal year for enterprise AI storage.
WDC Price Performance, Valuation and Estimates
In the past six months, shares of WDC have surged 92.7% compared with the Zacks Computer-Storage Devices industry’s growth of 71%.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
In terms of forward price/earnings, WDC shares are trading at 19.64X, higher than the industry’s 9.96X.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for WDC’s earnings for fiscal 2026 has been revised upward by 15% to $8.96 over the past 60 days.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Currently, Western Digital sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.