Western Digital Introduces HDD for Home/Office NAS Systems
WD has released a new line of HDDs designed specifically for home and small office NAS systems.
Western Digital on Tuesday introduced the new line of WD Red NAS hard drives that are specifically designed for home and small office NAS systems with one to five drive bays. These drives are now shipping in 3.5-inch 1 TB, 2 TB and 3 TB variants, and are compatibility-tested and power/performance optimized for solutions provided by top NAS box manufacturers.
"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," said Melyssa Banda, senior director of product marketing for WD. "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."
The new WD Red line features NASware technology that's designed to improve reliability and system performance, reduce customer downtime and to simplify the integration process. The new line also features 3D Active Balance Plus, add an enhanced balance control technology, which significantly improves the overall drive performance and reliability. Even more, WD is offering free premium 24x7 dedicated support and a three-year limited warranty.
The WD Red branding also signifies that the new NAS-oriented drives fall within the company's new "Power of Choice" client hard drive labeling. The WD Red naturally stands for home and small office NAS solutions, joining WD Blue (solid performance and reliability for everyday computing), WD Green (cool, quiet, eco-friendly), and WD Black (maximum performance for power computing).
On the technical front, all three drives connect via a SATA 6 Gb/s interface, and feature an RPM maintained by IntelliPower which is defined as "a fine-tuned balance of spin speed, transfer rate and caching algorithms designed to deliver both significant power savings and solid performance." This likely means the platters spin at around 5400 RPM (that's just a guess).
WD Red hard drives are available now at select resellers and distributors costing $109 USD for the 1 TB model (WD10EFRX), $139 USD for the 2 TB model (WD20EFRX), and $189 USD for the 3 TB model (WD30EFRX). More information about WD Red hard drives including terms of the limited warranty may be found on the company website at http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=810.
WD Red NAS HDD launch partners include WD's own branded products, QNAP Systems, Inc., Synology Inc., and Thecus Tech., Corp.
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Kevin Parrish has over a decade of experience as a writer, editor, and product tester. His work focused on computer hardware, networking equipment, smartphones, tablets, gaming consoles, and other internet-connected devices. His work has appeared in Tom's Hardware, Tom's Guide, Maximum PC, Digital Trends, Android Authority, How-To Geek, Lifewire, and others.
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hannibal So 4 different variations now? (red, green, black and blue...) It would be nice to see cross test between these models...Reply
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CaedenV Dear WD,Reply
it is not that we have not had a choice, it is that you have been attempting to screw your customers by now allowing us to RAID your cheap drives, and the solution has been both simple and satisfying: Buy Samsung or Seagate, both of whom make better drives than WD to begin with. -
I just bought a WD 2TB Black Enterprise Hard drive, but what disadvantages or advantages does it compare to these new "Red" line of hard drives? Or is the the "Red" line just a re-badge of the Black Enterprise series of hard drives?Reply
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hannibal http://www.storagereview.com/western_digital_red_nas_hard_drive_review_wd30efrxReply
Red seems to be allright! Very low power usage and reasonable speed...
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thecolorblue this is not innovation.Reply
drop your prices HDD makers...
make 6 tb Drives HDD makers...
or watch SSD's take over. that is all -
ravewulf At least with the IntelliPower spec, these seem similar to the Green drives. I'd like to see a benchmark comparison between all of their HDD lines to see what the practical differences areReply -
_Cosmin_ You can tell if this is a shitty product by seeing 3D somewhere in description!Reply
Everything now sells if has 3D somewhere, even if it has nothing to do with 3D Movies... but for the sheeps it works!
And...fully NAS compatible hard drive? There is a standard for this so a drive should be compatible or not?
I have a small NAS (freeNAS) with 5 drives in it (3 of them are WD... go figure) and they perform perfectly! Even more the software spin them down when are not in use so they are power efficient too.
So what this RED ones have "extra what" that should make me buy them?