WD Red Pro 26TB hits the market for $569 — new capacity enables portable 208TB RAID solution for $8,299

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DAS solutions rely on Ultrastar drives, though.

WD Red Pro 26TB
(Image credit: Western Digital)

Western Digital has introduced its highest-capacity hard disk drive for network-attached storage (NAS) systems—the WD Red Pro 26TB—and several direct-attached storage (DAS) systems aimed at creative professionals. These DAS offer capacities of up to 208TB and employ one to eight hard drives.

Western Digital's WD Red Pro 26TB hard drive (WD260KFGX) is based on the company's latest 11-platter helium-sealed platform with a 7200 RPM spindle speed and the OptiNAND technology. The drive leverages Western Digital's 2nd Generation energy-assisted perpendicular magnetic recording (ePMR 2) platform and uses conventional magnetic recording (CMR) for predictable performance in all workloads. Speaking of performance, the WD Red Pro 26TB can boast a 272 MB/s transfer rate.

The WD Red Pro is designed for high-performance and enterprise-grade NAS, so it is equipped to work in vibrating multi-user environments 24/7 and is rated for a 550TB workload per year. In particular, the hard drive comes equipped with rotation vibration sensors that foresee and automatically counteract turbulences caused by increased vibration and multi-axis shock sensors to detect shock events and proactively compensate them with the fly height technology.

The WD Red Pro 26TB has a five-year warranty and an MSRP of $569.99.

G-DRIVE

(Image credit: Western Digital)

In addition to introducing a new NAS HDD, Western Digital expanded its DAS and NAS lineups. Interestingly, instead of using its WD Red Pro 26TB hard drives, the company uses its Ultrastar DC HD590 26TB HDDs, which rely on a similar platform.

Western Digital's most basic DAS is the G-Drive, which now offers a capacity of up to 26TB for $649.99. The unit has a 10 Gb/s USB Type-C interface and offers read speeds of up to 260 MB/s and write speeds of up to 270 MB/s. As the product is aimed at creative professionals, it comes in a stackable, anodized aluminum chassis with anchor points for secure attachment to DIT (digital imaging technician) production carts, mounting plates, or other gear.

G-Drive Project

(Image credit: Western Digital)

For those who need something more advanced, Western Digital has G-Drive Project, which now offers up to 26TB of HDD storage, a SanDisk Professional PRO-BLADE SSD Mag slot for an SSD installation, and two Thunderbolt 3/USB-C ports for connectivity. This one cost $999.99.

For those who need a lot of storage space on their desktop, Western Digital offers the G-RAID Project 2, with two 3.5-inch bays and a maximum capacity of 52TB, for $1,699.99.

Western Digital also expanded the G-RAID Shuttle 4, with four 3.5-inch bays and a maximum capacity of 104TB, for $4,499.99, and the G-RAID Shuttle 8, with eight 3.5-inch bays and a maximum capacity of 208TB, for $8,299.99. These devices support RAID modes for performance and redundancy and have two Thunderbolt 3 ports. They are set to the default RAID 5 with the higher-end devices delivering transfer speeds up to 1700 MB/s for reading and 1500 MB/s for writing.

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Anton Shilov
Anton Shilov
Contributing Writer

Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.

8 Comments Comment from the forums
  • lmcnabney
    Well over 2 cents per GB. At this rate NAND will be cheaper in a couple years.
    Reply
  • Shiznizzle
    lmcnabney said:
    Well over 2 cents per GB. At this rate NAND will be cheaper in a couple years.
    That stuff degrades and has a shelf life. Also the info stored on it degrades in a year if not plugged in unlike spinning platters.

    With HDD even if the motor fails that info is said. Try fixing a chip or getting into off of it when it fails.
    Reply
  • leclod
    lmcnabney said:
    Well over 2 cents per GB. At this rate NAND will be cheaper in a couple years.
    That is a launch price of a high end HDD. There are way cheaper deals out there.
    And in a couple years price will have settled too.
    But 11 platters !
    Reply
  • leclod
    Shiznizzle said:
    With HDD even if the motor fails that info is said.
    I once had an aunt try to restore the data from such a broken drive.
    First it was very expensive.
    Second she got in trouble about copyrights.
    Who fills an HDD with strictly legally owned data ?
    Reply
  • nrdwka
    leclod said:
    I once had an aunt try to restore the data from such a broken drive.
    First it was very expensive.
    Second she got in trouble about copyrights.
    Who fills an HDD with strictly legally owned data ?
    who do not not encrypted such backup? Encrypted container still perfectly restorable
    Reply
  • lmcnabney
    Shiznizzle said:
    That stuff degrades and has a shelf life. Also the info stored on it degrades in a year if not plugged in unlike spinning platters.

    With HDD even if the motor fails that info is said. Try fixing a chip or getting into off of it when it fails.
    The data is pretty clear that NAND lasts longer than spinning rust. NAND is also a couple orders of magnitude faster. I'm not sure where you get the idea that NAND has to be plugged in regularly. My daughter took an old 500GB external SSD off to college. It has been in a drawer for over five years and she called to ask what to do with all of the files that were still on it. It worked fine and is about a decade old now. Data recovery for NAND is just different than HDD, but it is available.
    Reply
  • lmcnabney
    leclod said:
    That is a launch price of a high end HDD. There are way cheaper deals out there.
    And in a couple years price will have settled too.
    But 11 platters !
    The cheapest storage you can buy (new) now is over 1.6 cents per GB. It has gotten as low as 1.2, but that was a while ago. The HDD market is just a cash cow. No competition to drive down prices so the industry is just milking it for as long as they can before they join floppy disks in the dustbin of history.
    Reply
  • leclod
    lmcnabney said:
    The cheapest storage you can buy (new) now is over 1.6 cents per GB.
    I just checked on pcpartpicker, cheapest SSD seems to be at 4.4 cents per GB.

    And the HDD prices are going down while some grown men playing war are hiking up all prices (I've never seen as low as 1.2 and I do watch).
    Reply