JetStor Delivers 80PB High-Density Archive for Government Agency Using WD's Ultrastar Drives

Massive Fibre Channel deployment leverages WD's 26TB drives and a zero-downtime POD blueprint for durable, cost-efficient storage.

Mar. 30, 2026 at 4:26pm

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A detailed 3D illustration of a large, glowing data center server rack filled with illuminated storage drives, representing the scale and complexity of the 80PB high-density archive deployment.A luminous, high-tech visualization of the massive data storage infrastructure powering a government agency's 80PB secure archive.Today in Pittsburgh

JetStor has announced the successful deployment of an 80PB high-density archive for a major government agency, built in collaboration with WD. The infrastructure delivers deterministic access, fabric isolation, and secure data retention at massive scale, using WD Ultrastar 26TB enterprise-class hard drives and a POD-based architecture.

Why it matters

As public-sector IT teams face the challenge of growing storage capacity economically without disrupting active production networks or retraining operations staff, JetStor's standardized POD-based approach paired with WD's high-capacity Ultrastar drives provides a secure, scalable, and cost-efficient storage foundation for long-term data retention.

The details

The 80PB archive was deployed across 132 JetStor XS3324D 4U 24-bay systems and 3,200 WD Ultrastar DC HC590 26TB SAS 7200RPM drives, using a dual Fibre Channel fabric architecture to support seamless expansion and straightforward infrastructure management.

  • The successful deployment was announced on March 30, 2026.

The players

JetStor

A company that has delivered high-performance storage solutions to over 4,000 customers for more than 30 years, focusing on performance, scalability, and operational reliability.

WD

A provider of enterprise-class hard drives, including the Ultrastar 26TB drives used in this deployment.

Government Agency

The major government agency that deployed the 80PB high-density archive.

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What they’re saying

“When a government agency reaches this scale, the architecture has to be predictable from day one and stay serviceable as it grows. We standardized the deployment into repeatable POD building blocks and paired them with WD 26TB Ultrastar drives to deliver an active archive that scales cleanly, stays isolated on Fibre Channel, and remains straightforward to operate.”

— Gene Leyzarovich, Founder of JetStor

“Across both public and private sectors, the exponential growth of data is driving the need for storage solutions that deliver durability, predictable performance, and cost-efficient capacity at scale. JetStor's POD blueprint demonstrates how WD's Ultrastar drives enables organizations to build a resilient, scalable data foundation that supports long-term retention and access with confidence.”

— Dan Christman, Senior Vice President of Product Management and Emerging Businesses at WD

What’s next

The full case study detailing the complete hardware breakdown, the dual A/B Fibre Channel fabric strategy, and the operational standards used to maintain predictable growth is available on the JetStor website.

The takeaway

This deployment showcases how enterprise-grade storage solutions like JetStor's POD-based architecture and WD's high-capacity Ultrastar drives can enable public-sector organizations to build a scalable, cost-efficient, and secure data foundation to support their long-term storage and retention needs.