Western Digital Ships 40 TB Nearline Platform as Cloud Storage Demand Builds

StorageReview reports that Western Digital began shipping a next-generation ePMR nearline platform with capacities up to 40 TB during the quarter ended July 3. The company also told investors that a 44 TB HAMR product remains planned for the first half of calendar 2027. The payload says WD shipped 231 exabytes in the quarter, with 209 exabytes coming from nearline products. This is storage-market news rather than DRAM or NAND news, but it matters for RamTrend's broader AI infrastructure view. Cloud and hyperscale storage growth can influence the balance between HDD, QLC SSD, and high-performance flash deployments. The direct effect on NAND pricing is unclear, because higher HDD capacity may either absorb bulk storage demand or sit alongside faster SSD tiers in AI data centers.