WDC's quarter was exceptional, with gross margins above 80%, 40TB ePMR about 30% of shipments next quarter and 50% after, and exabyte growth accelerating in fiscal years 2027 and 2028; but shares fell 2.6%, supply shortages are seen limiting growth, and disclosure makes capacity growth hard to verify.

I think they are ahead of companies like Western Digital or Toshiba by about a year or a year and a half in terms of development and products that are actually shipped.

Western Digital uses a technology it calls ePMR, in addition to increasing the number of heads and disks to match Seagate's HAMR capacities , all of which fall under the category of HAMR drives.

Earlier this year, Western Digital also discussed increasing the number of discs in their drives from the current 11 to 14 in the future. Using this approach with HAMR to achieve 100 terabyte hard drives by 2030 .

The company also discussed two approaches to increasing the performance of hard drives, which is really interesting. One of them is using two separate operators that can effectively double the data transfer rate.

The second approach is to write and read separately on pairs of heads on either side of the disk to also increase data rates. Talk about this with up to four pairs of heads that will allow you to increase your data rates by as much as 8 times.

And if you also theoretically implement dual-drive functionality , you could get a data rate increase of about 16 times , which would be very important with these very high-capacity hard drives.

To focus more on Western Digital as I just mentioned, we clearly got the results. I mean, what caught your attention the most this quarter? Because it was an absolutely fantastic report .

However, we did not see any reactions. I mean, it wasn't as positive as it should have been throughout the week. I mean, we're down about 2.6%. So, it's not a day of tremendous pressure, but it's still that way . I mean, were the results exceptional?

Yes, the results were exceptional. She said that additional gross profit margins would remain above 80%, supported by higher capacity products and stronger pricing, as we just discussed.

They stated that the 40TB ePMR platform will account for approximately 30% of their shipments in the next quarter and approximately 50 % in the following quarter, which represents significant growth.

They say that shipments of the first generation of HAMR technology are on track to begin in the first half of calendar year 2027. The qualification process for the second generation of HAMR technology is planned to take place in the second half of next year.

The company also expects exabyte growth to accelerate during fiscal years 2027 and 2028. Therefore, there appears to be significant growth expected to support many of these data centers.

There is room for further price increases as they will continue to suffer from shortages for some time.

Well, the demand for AI-related storage has been the focus of conversation all week. I mean, not just for Western Digital, but the point is that demand currently clearly exceeds supply.

This is generally viewed as a good thing in economics. However, when it comes to a company like Western Digital or even Lam Research, which is different of course but has similar limitations, this is no longer seen as a positive aspect because it clearly limits the ability of these companies to grow .

So, does this make you a little hesitant when it comes to Western Digital or the wider storage sector because of this current lack of growth and capacity that is constraining the entire industry?

Seagate and Western Digital have looked at this, and they are essentially trying to grow through virtual drive capacity rather than increasing the number of units shipped. And they do almost exactly that, in my estimation.

It has become more difficult to determine this than before because they do not disclose the figures that give you this information.