WD Designs Specific 3.5-Inch HDDs for NAS Only

Western Digital Technologies, Inc. debuts of WD Red NAS hard drives, a line of SATA hard drives specifically designed for home and small office NAS systems with one to five drive bays.

Compatibility-tested with top NAS box manufacturers and optimized for power and performance, Red hard drives are now shipping in 3.5-inch 1TB, 2TB and 3TB capacities.

The 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.

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 Red customers, WD is offering free premium 24×7 dedicated support and a three-year limited warranty.

The addition of WD Red expands WD’s ‘Power of Choice’ client hard drive solutions. WD recognizes that customers and their applications are diverse and they should be empowered to choose the drives that best suit their storage needs. With distinguishable colors, the ‘Power of Choice’ storage solutions are clear and easy to identify: WD Blue (solid performance and reliability for everyday computing), WD Green (cool, quiet, eco-friendly), WD Black  performance for power computing) and WD Red (home and small office NAS). The four colors enable selection of the best drive for customers’ application or usage requirements.

"The network attached entry level storage market is poised to grow at an 86.2% 2011-2016 CAGR [Source: IDC Personal and Entry-Level Storage Device Forecast, 1Q12, Doc. #235698, June 2012]," according to John Rydning, IDC’s research VP for hard disk drives. "WD’s new WD Red hard disk drives offer a unique combination of product features and customer support for users seeking to expand the capacity of their entry-level network attached storage solutions."

"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."   

Red hard drives integrate with WD NAS solutions and are qualified to work with an array of OEM partners.

Availability and Pricing
Red hard drives are available at select resellers and distributors. MSRP for the WD Red 1TB drive (model #: WD10EFRX) is $109, the 2TB drive (model #: WD20EFRX) is $139 and the 3TB drive (model #: WD30EFRX) is $189.

"The My Book Live family has received strong reception from consumers and the WD Red drive offers attributes ideal for small NAS systems," said Scott Vouri, vice president and general manager of WD’s connected home solutions group. "My Book Live customers will benefit from WD Red’s NASware features in the future."

"The rapid growth of the global NAS market has led to hard drives optimized specifically for entry-level NAS use," said Richard Lee, CEO of QNAP Systems, Inc. "The launch of WD Red NAS hard drives offer QNAP four-bay NAS products a reliable solution for 24×7 operations. QNAP also provides a broad range of high-end business level NAS solutions well matched with WD RAID level hard drives."

"Synology is thrilled to be teaming up with WD to offer customers a reliable storage solution featuring WD Red NAS hard drives, which are optimized for consumer NAS systems," said Vic Hsu, CEO of Synology Inc. "The award-winning Synology DiskStation makes it easy for users to build secure private clouds that operate at maximum uptime. By delivering our unique technologies together, Synology and WD will provide users with greater reliability, cooler operation and a higher quality of user experience."

"The compatibility of Thecus NAS with the new and dynamic WD Red HDDs is excellent news for all," said Florence Shih, general manager of Thecus Tech., Corp. "To realize this vision, users can experience firsthand true power and performance. Ultimately, the congruency among WD Red hard drives with Thecus NAS brings great opportunities to the storage industry."

More information about Red hard drives including terms of the limited warranty