Western Digital: For NAS, Red SA500 SATA 2.5-Inch HDD Up to 4TB, Red and Red Pro Up to 14TB 3.5-Inch HDDs, M.2 Red SA 500 SSD Up to 2TB

Western Digital Corp.  introduced purpose-built storage solutions for small businesses and home offices leveraging NAS environments.

The solutions include the Red SSDs, which enhance performance and caching abilities in a hybrid NAS environment, as well as a 14TB capacity for the WD Red and Red Pro HDDs.

SSD performance to support speed connectivity
With the increase in virtualization, 10GbE and higher connectivity speeds are becoming a feature set in modern NAS systems. To help minimize a performance bottleneck, SSD speeds are crucial.

To support the requirements of these environments, storage device durability, speed and capacity remain in demand. Building on the reliability of the Red product portfolio, the solutions are built to transform pain points to profits for the end user. When utilized as a caching solution in a NAS, the Red SA500 SSD helps to boost performance while a higher capacity Red and Red Pro HDDs offer more storage space in the same NAS.

“A boost in performance for NAS systems can translate to more content in less time, so creators or small businesses can work more efficiently to increase output and, as a result, potential income,” said Ziv Paz, senior director, client computing segment marketing, Western Digital. “Our higher capacities coupled with optimized endurance in the WD Red portfolio are making room for larger files and reducing storage bandwidth-induced stress. For creators working on large projects over time, the latest WD Red SSD solution enables a hybrid NAS environment where the SSD can serve as a caching mechanism for both large and frequently accessed files.“

“Working with Western Digital has proved increasingly beneficial in delivering premium storage for our NAS systems,” said Meiji Chang, GM, Qnap Systems, Inc. “With the addition of today’s WD Red SA500 SSD as a storage or caching solution, our customers can now take full advantage of dedicated SSD slots in our systems and benefit from faster network transfer speeds and optimal endurance.“

“Whether it’s editing video projects, backing up photos or developing software, the right storage platform not only protects your data, but lets you access it faster,” said Patrick Deschere, MD, Synology America Corp. “By pairing Synology with Western Digital, you can optimize your NAS experience and get the best of the cloud while maintaining complete ownership of your data.“

Product details:

• Red SA500 NAS SATA SSD
  Purpose-built for NAS enthusiasts, the Red SA500 NAS SATA SSD offers capacities from 500GB up to 4TB ⁽¹⁾ (2.5-inch only) and creates an environment optimized for 10GbE networks as well as caching in NAS systems to rapidly access frequently used files. With endurance for read and write loads demanded by NAS in a 24/7 environment, the drive supports OLTP databases, multi-user environments, photo rendering, 4K and 8K video editing.

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• Red NAS HDD
  Complementary to the Red SA500 NAS SATA SSD, the WD Red HDD capacity increase to 14TB ⁽¹⁾ is designed for use in NAS systems with up to 8 bays. For small-and-home-office 24/7 environments, the drive supports up to a 180TB/year workload rate ^(*).

• Red Pro NAS HDD
  Built like the WD Red HDD with a boost for professional NAS workloads and up to 14TB ⁽¹⁾ capacity, the WD Red Pro HDD supports up to 24 bays. With 3D Active Balance Plus technology and error recovery controls with NASware 3.0 technology, the drive operates with enhanced reliability.

Pricing and availability:

• Red SA500 SSD comes in capacities of 500GB up to 2TB for the M.2 form factor and ranges in price from $72 up to $297 MSRP in the U.S.

• 2.5-inch form factor of the Red SA500 SSD comes in capacities of 500GB up to 4TB and ranges in price from $75 to $600 MSRP in the U.S. Both form factors of Red SA500 SSDs are available in limited quantities at the firm’s webstore in the U.S. and will be available globally in November at select retailers, e-tailers, resellers, and system integrators.

• Red NAS HDD in 14TB capacity is priced at $450 MSRP in the U.S. and the Red NAS Pro HDD in 14TB capacity is priced at $525 MSRP in the U.S. These 14TB HDD products will be available in November at select retailers, e-tailers, resellers, system integrators and at the firm’s webstore.

Theses Red products join the company’s portfolio of HDD and SSD solutions for a range of applications in enterprise, client and gaming markets. For enterprise customers, the firm recently enhanced its Gold enterprise HDD storage solution, available in capacities up to 14TB ⁽¹⁾.

“A boost in performance for NAS systems can translate to more content in less time, so creators or small businesses can work more efficiently to increase output and, as a result, potential income,” said Paz.

⁽¹⁾ As used for storage capacity, 1GB = one billion bytes and 1TB = one trillion bytes. Actual user capacity may be less, depending on operating environment.
^(*) Workload Rate is defined as the amount of user data transferred to or from the hard drive. Workload Rate is annualized (terabyte transferred✕(8,760/recorded power-on hours). Workload Rate will vary depending on hardware and software components and configurations.