Western Digital Unveils Hard Drives for Inexpensive NAS Systems

From X-bit Labs: Western Digital on Tuesday announced the debut of WD Red NAS hard drives specifically designed for home and small office NAS (network attached storage) systems with one to five drive bays. Compatibility-tested with top NAS box manufacturers and optimized for power efficiency and high performance in NAS conditions.

“Until now, customers had to choose between using desktop or high-end server drives for their home or small office NAS systems – neither of which were both cost effective for consumer solutions and fully NAS compatible. WD saw this challenge as a perfect opportunity to design a better solution so we developed WD Red drives, an optimized product for this rapidly growing segment,” said Melyssa Banda, senior director of product marketing for WD.

WD Red hard drives are now shipping in 3.5" form-factor with 1TB, 2TB and 3TB capacities. The hard disk drive use Serial ATA-6Gb/s interface, 64MB cache as well as variable "IntelliPower" revolutions per minute spindle speed (which is widely believed to be 5900rpm). The WD Red drives consume from 0.6W to 4.4W of power.

The WD Red line features NASware technology, designed to improve reliability and system performance, reduce customer downtime and to simplify the integration process. This new product line addresses the unique environment of NAS and the growing demand for affordable, reliable and compatible storage that reduces customer total cost of ownership. WD Red hard drives also feature 3D Active Balance Plus, an enhanced balance control technology, which significantly improves the overall drive performance and reliability. In an exclusive for WD Red customers, WD is offering free premium 24x7 dedicated support and a three-year limited warranty.

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