Western Digital Ultrastar Edge Servers Announced

Today Western Digital (WDC) announced that its new Ultrastar Edge Servers including a rugged MIL-spec version or the Western Digital Ultrastar Edge-MR. Like other edge servers, the Ultrastar Edge Servers aim to bring compute closer to the data which in turn should lead to faster processing, lower latency, and real-time decision making. Both servers are portable at sub 20″ in length, and have a certain level of ruggedness to them, though one more so than the other.

Today Western Digital (WDC) announced that its new Ultrastar Edge Servers including a rugged MIL-spec version or the Western Digital Ultrastar Edge-MR. Like other edge servers, the Ultrastar Edge Servers aim to bring compute closer to the data which in turn should lead to faster processing, lower latency, and real-time decision making. Both servers are portable at sub 20″ in length, and have a certain level of ruggedness to them, though one more so than the other.

Western Digital Ultrastar Edge Servers For Rugged Locations

While people have withdrawn from the physical edge over that last year or so, data is still being generated outside of the data center at a massive rate. 5G and IoT continue to expand at the edge, which, in turn, will increase the demand for compute at the edge. Companies want to extract insight faster to meet customer needs, or more so, increase revenue streams. Western Digital has entered into this fray with its Ultrastar Edge Servers, bringing a trusted storage provider as an option for customers.

Both of the servers released today support up to two second-generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors with 40 cores. WD specs the servers with up to 61TB of NVMe storage via eight 7.68TB SN640 SSDs. As this server is designed for a use case that requires “a very particular set of skills,” the drive bays and CPUs aren’t set up like a traditional server. The CPUs are stacked in the center body of the chassis and the SSDs are all inside, preventing tampering by removing a drive caddy.

While processing data at the edge is important, the data still needs to move back to the core. With this in mind, the servers come with either two 50GbE ports or one 100GbE port. Real-time analytics can rely heavily on AI and ML, with this in mind, the servers also support an NVIDIA T4 GPU. The expansion slots are all nice and tidy, cabled and tucked away at the top of the photo above.

For deployment in the field that is less intense, is the normal Western Digital Ultrastar Edge Server. For factories or remote data centers, this server is a transportable 2U rack-mountable server with a portable case. While smaller and more durable than a normal server, this is the “less rugged” of the two announced today. The server can be paired with a wheeled travel case and the bezel can double as a handle for lugging it around when needed.

Data sometimes needs to be processed in some of the harshest environments including deserts, seas, and jungles. This is where the extremely rugged, stackable, and highly transportable Ultrastar Edge-MR comes in. This server is ideal for military or specialized fields that work in rough areas. WD says the Ultrastar Edge-MR is designed and tested in accordance with MIL-STD-810G-CHG-1 standards for limits of shock and vibration, and to the MIL-STD-461G standard for electromagnetic interference. The Ultrastar Edge-MR is also IP32 rated to provide ingress protection against water and debris.

While many use cases will require just one server to be online, WD is ready with clustered solution options should the deployment need more resilience. Models with networking are available and should a customer want something special like vSAN on-site for instance, we’re quite confident that WD or their deployment partners for these servers, would abide.

Western Digital Ultrastar Edge Specifications

Max. Drives	8 Ultrastar DC SN640 NVMe SSDs 7.68TB per SSD, 1 DW/D, ISE (Instant Secure Erase)
Boot Drives	2 M.2 NVMe 1TB SSDs
CPUs	2 Intel Xeon Gold 6230T, 2.1GHz, 20 cores each, 125W TDP
Memory	512GiB DDR4 Installed (8x 64GiB DIMMs)
GPU	NVIDIA Tesla T4
Networking	Dual 10GBase-T RJ-45 Mellanox ConnectX-5 100GbE QSFP28
I/O	1 Serial DB9 Console Port
Physical Dimensions	Height: 88.9mm (3.5”) Width: 431.8mm (17”) Depth: 502.9mm (19.8”)
MR Physical Dimensions	Height: 292mm (11.5”) Width: 609.6mm (24”) Depth: 952.5mm (37.5”)
Weight w/o Case	15.15kg (33.4lbs)
MR Weight	32.35kg (71.1lbs)
Power	850W, Platinum 100-240V AC input, auto-ranging
Cooling	4 60mm fans
Management	IPMI 2.0 system management Dedicated DB9 Serial management port
Environmental	Operating Temperature: 0° to 43°C Non-op Temperature: -5° to 63°C Operating Altitude: 3,050m (10,000ft)
Physical Security	FIPS 140-2 Level 2
Ingress Protection (MR only)	IP32 (Operating)

Both of the new servers feature the Trusted Platform Module 2.0, a tamper-evident enclosure and is built to meet FIPS 140-2 Level 2 security standards.

Availability

Both the Western Digital Ultrastar Edge and the Ultrastar Edge-MR are currently sampling with select customers but are available for order.

Western Digital

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