HUH721008AL5200 WD Ultrastar DC HC510 8TB 7.2K RPM SAS 12GBPS LFF HDD

WD Ultrastar DC HC510 8TB HDD

The WD HUH721008AL5200 Ultrastar DC HC510 8TB 7.2K RPM SAS 12Gbps LFF HDD is a high-capacity enterprise hard drive engineered for reliability, scalability, and efficiency. Designed for data centers and cloud environments, it delivers consistent performance and optimized storage density.

General Information

• Brand: Western Digital
• Model Number: HUH721008AL5200
• Category: Ultrastar DC HC510 (He10) 8TB Enterprise Hard Drive

Technical Specifications

Storage & Interface

• Capacity: 8TB
• Enclosure: Internal
• Maximum Areal Density: 816 Gbits/sq. in
• Interface: SAS 12Gbps
• Form Factor: 3.5-inch Large Form Factor
• MTBF: 2.5 million hours

Drive Performance

• Interface Transfer Rate: 1200 Mbps
• Sustained Transfer Rate: 225 Mbps (read), 215 Mbps (write)
• Seek Time (Read Typical): 8.0 ms
• Seek Time (Write Typical): 8.6 ms
• Average Latency: 4.16 ms
• Buffer: 256 MB
• Rotational Speed: 7200 RPM

Applications & Environments

Enterprise & Data Center Usage

• High-density storage for enterprise workloads
• Optimized for power efficiency and scalability

Cloud & Hyperscale Storage

• Ideal for cloud infrastructure
• Supports hyperscale deployments

Massive Scale-Out Data Centers

• Designed for MSO (Massive Scale-Out) environments
• Supports large-scale storage clusters

Bulk Storage Solutions

• Compatible with object storage platforms like Ceph™ and Hadoop®
• Supports big data analytics and processing

Video Surveillance & Monitoring

• Centralized video surveillance storage
• Drop-in ready for mainstream enterprise applications

Physical Specifications

• Z-Height: 26.1 mm
• Dimensions (W x D): 101.6 x 147 mm
• Weight: 660 g

WD Ultrastar DC HC510 8TB SAS 12GBPS LFF HDD Overview

The Western Digital HUH721008AL5200 Ultrastar DC HC510, also known as the HE10 platform, represents a highly advanced enterprise hard drive category engineered for demanding data center and cloud infrastructure environments. This category focuses on delivering consistent performance, exceptional reliability, and optimized total cost of ownership for organizations managing large-scale data growth. Designed with a helium-filled enclosure and a robust 3.5-inch form factor, this enterprise hard drive category addresses the needs of hyperscale data centers, private cloud deployments, enterprise storage arrays, and mission-critical server applications.

Within this category, storage solutions are built to sustain continuous workloads and high utilization rates, far beyond the operational expectations of consumer or desktop-class drives. The Ultrastar DC HC510 line emphasizes durability, predictable latency, and seamless integration with SAS-based storage architectures. These drives are optimized for environments where data availability, uptime, and integrity are non-negotiable, making them a cornerstone of modern enterprise IT ecosystems.

Helium-Sealed Platform and High-Density Storage Design

The helium platform employed in the Ultrastar DC HC510 category enables a significant leap in storage density and efficiency. Helium, being lighter than air, reduces internal turbulence within the drive enclosure, allowing for more platters to be stacked without increasing mechanical friction or power consumption. This design approach directly contributes to the 8TB capacity while maintaining a standard 3.5-inch enterprise form factor.

Enterprise hard drives in this category are engineered to maximize rack-level storage density. By offering higher capacity per drive, data centers can reduce the total number of drives required, lowering cooling requirements, power usage, and physical footprint. This architectural advantage supports scalable infrastructure strategies, particularly in environments where space optimization and operational efficiency are key performance indicators.

Mechanical Stability and Precision Engineering

The internal mechanics of this enterprise drive category are precision-engineered to maintain stability at sustained rotational speeds of 7,200 RPM. Advanced spindle motor technology and vibration-resistant components ensure consistent performance even in densely populated storage enclosures. This stability is critical in multi-drive server chassis where rotational vibration can negatively impact performance and drive longevity.

Helium-sealed construction also enhances mechanical reliability by reducing wear on internal components. The result is a drive category that delivers predictable performance over extended service life, supporting enterprise workloads that operate continuously around the clock.

SAS 12Gbps Interface for High-Throughput Environments

The Serial Attached SCSI 12Gbps interface defines this category as a high-performance enterprise storage solution. SAS connectivity provides dual-port capability, enabling redundancy and failover configurations that are essential for high-availability systems. This interface standard is widely adopted in enterprise storage arrays, making the Ultrastar DC HC510 category highly compatible with existing server and storage infrastructures.

Compared to SATA-based alternatives, SAS offers superior command queuing, enhanced error handling, and improved throughput consistency. These features make this category particularly suitable for transactional workloads, virtualization platforms, and large-scale database environments where predictable response times are critical.

Optimized Data Transfer and Low Latency Operations

With a sustained data transfer architecture supported by a 256MB cache buffer, this category is designed to efficiently manage read and write operations under heavy load. The large cache helps reduce latency during frequent data access, ensuring smoother performance for applications that rely on continuous data streams.

Enterprise storage systems benefit from this optimized buffering mechanism, especially in scenarios involving mixed workloads where both sequential and random access patterns are present. The result is a balanced performance profile that supports a wide range of enterprise applications.

Enterprise Reliability and Workload Endurance

Reliability is a defining characteristic of the Ultrastar DC HC510 enterprise hard drive category. These drives are engineered for high workload ratings, supporting intensive read and write operations over extended periods. This makes them suitable for data-intensive applications such as analytics platforms, backup repositories, and large-scale content storage systems.

Advanced error detection and correction technologies are integrated into the drive firmware to maintain data integrity. These mechanisms continuously monitor drive health and operational parameters, helping prevent data corruption and unexpected downtime. For enterprise IT teams, this translates into improved system stability and reduced maintenance overhead.

Vibration Protection and Environmental Resilience

In multi-drive enterprise enclosures, vibration can significantly impact performance and reliability. This category incorporates rotational vibration sensors and compensation algorithms that dynamically adjust performance to maintain accuracy. This ensures consistent operation even when drives are installed in high-density configurations.

Environmental resilience is further enhanced through rigorous testing standards. Drives in this category are validated to operate within a wide range of temperatures and conditions, making them suitable for diverse data center environments across the globe.

512e Format and Advanced Sector Technology

The use of 512e advanced format technology allows this category to balance modern storage efficiency with legacy system compatibility. By emulating traditional 512-byte sectors while utilizing larger physical sectors internally, these drives improve error correction capabilities and storage efficiency.

This approach ensures seamless integration with existing operating systems, RAID controllers, and enterprise applications. Organizations can deploy these drives without extensive infrastructure changes, simplifying upgrades and expansions while benefiting from improved data reliability.

Enhanced Data Integrity and Error Management

Advanced sector technology supports stronger error correction codes, which play a crucial role in maintaining data accuracy over long-term storage. This is especially important for archival data, compliance records, and mission-critical business information that must remain intact over extended periods.

Combined with enterprise-grade firmware algorithms, this sector format contributes to the overall robustness of the storage solution, reinforcing its suitability for high-value data storage.

Instant Secure Erase and Data Protection Capabilities

Security is an integral component of this enterprise hard drive category. Instant Secure Erase functionality enables rapid and complete data sanitization when drives are decommissioned or repurposed. This feature is essential for organizations that must comply with data protection regulations and internal security policies.

By enabling secure and verifiable data erasure, this category helps reduce the risk of data breaches associated with retired storage hardware. This capability also streamlines asset management processes, allowing enterprises to redeploy or dispose of drives with confidence.

Compliance and Regulatory Alignment

Enterprise environments often operate under strict regulatory requirements related to data privacy and retention. The security features embedded in this category support compliance with industry standards and best practices, making it suitable for sectors such as finance, healthcare, and government.

These capabilities ensure that sensitive information remains protected throughout the entire lifecycle of the storage device, from deployment to decommissioning.

Scalability for Cloud and Hyperscale Data Centers

The Ultrastar DC HC510 category is specifically designed to support scalable storage architectures. High capacity, consistent performance, and low power consumption per terabyte make these drives ideal for cloud service providers and hyperscale data centers managing petabytes of information.

Scalability is achieved not only through capacity but also through predictable performance characteristics. This allows IT architects to design storage systems that can grow without introducing performance bottlenecks or operational inefficiencies.

Optimized Total Cost of Ownership

From an economic perspective, this category offers a compelling balance between capacity, performance, and energy efficiency. Helium-based design reduces power consumption, which directly impacts operational costs in large-scale deployments.

By minimizing failure rates and maintenance requirements, these drives help lower long-term ownership costs. This makes them an attractive option for organizations seeking to maximize return on investment while maintaining enterprise-grade reliability.

Compatibility with Enterprise Storage Ecosystems

Compatibility is a critical consideration for enterprise storage solutions, and this category is engineered to integrate seamlessly with a wide range of server platforms, RAID controllers, and storage arrays. The SAS interface ensures broad compatibility across enterprise-grade hardware ecosystems.

This flexibility allows organizations to deploy the Ultrastar DC HC510 category in new installations or as part of incremental upgrades to existing infrastructure. The result is a versatile storage solution that adapts to evolving business requirements.

Support for Virtualization and Database Workloads

Virtualized environments and enterprise databases place unique demands on storage subsystems, including high IOPS consistency and low latency. This category is well-suited to support these workloads, providing reliable performance for virtual machines, containerized applications, and transactional databases.

The combination of high rotational speed, large cache buffer, and SAS connectivity ensures that storage performance remains stable even under fluctuating workload conditions.

Consistency Across Large-Scale Deployments

In large enterprise or cloud environments, consistency across thousands of drives is essential. This category is manufactured to strict quality standards, ensuring uniform performance and reliability across deployments.

Such consistency simplifies capacity planning, performance tuning, and operational management, enabling IT teams to focus on strategic initiatives rather than reactive maintenance.

Data-Driven Infrastructure Enablement

The Western Digital Ultrastar DC HC510 enterprise hard drive category plays a critical role in enabling data-driven business strategies. By providing reliable, high-capacity storage, it supports analytics, machine learning pipelines, and large-scale data processing frameworks.

As organizations continue to generate and rely on vast amounts of data, this category offers a dependable foundation for storing, accessing, and protecting valuable information assets.