Storage-drive manufacturer Western Digital managed to increase sales of its hard drives by more than $ 539 million last quarter, as its total HDD capacity increased approximately 34% quarter-on-quarter. WD's revenue increased due to Chia mining but also due to the success of its 18TB HDDs among data center operators and cloud service companies.
Chia cryptocurrency miners also played a notable role in its high-capacity hard drive sales. But WD says those $ 200 million in hard drive sales destined for Chia's miners during the quarter didn't play a big role.
[amazon box=»B06W55K9N6″ title=»WD Elements 2TB External Hard Drive» star_rating=»none» template=»table»]Chia Mining Reported Sales to Western Digital
According to Western Digital, they saw increased demand due to the rise of the Chia cryptocurrency that brought in millions in revenue. But they allege that their growth that quarter was mainly due to increased demand for cloud services and the beginning of a recovery in business demand.
Hard drive manufacturers and market watchers say that most Chía miners use second-hand hard drives for their cultivation, while professional miners buy high-capacity enterprise hard drives. The manufacturer sold 25,7 million hard drives in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2021 compared to 23,2 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2021 and 23,1 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2020.
Although these WD income figures of increases thanks to Chia mining may soon go down. Cloud services company Blackblaze dedicated a portion of its assets to mine Chia and they had to stop before the cost exceeded the income after only three months because there is little real demand and there is too much mining
Source: Tom's Hardware
