Western Digital Announces The Red Line of NAS Drives

Western Digital, today introduced an array of purpose-built storage solutions for small businesses and home offices leveraging NAS environments. The solutions include the first-ever WD Red SSDs, which enhance performance and caching abilities in a hybrid NAS environment, as well as a 14TB capacity for the WD Red and WD Red Pro HDDs.

SSD Performance to Support High-Speed Connectivity

With the increase in virtualization, 10GbE (10 Gigabit Ethernet) and higher connectivity speeds are becoming an essential feature set in modern NAS systems. To help minimize performance bottleneck, SSD speeds are crucial. To fully support the requirements of these environments, storage device durability, speed and capacity remain heavily in demand. Building on the proven reliability of Western Digital's WD 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 system, the WD Red SA500 SSD helps to boost performance while the new higher capacity WD Red and WD Red Pro HDDs offer more storage space in the same NAS device.

"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."

and "Working with Western Digital has proved increasingly beneficial in delivering premium storage for our NAS systems," said Meiji Chang, general manager, QNAP. "With the addition of today's WD Red SA500 SSD as 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.

The Three New Products - NAS Hardrives and SSDs

New products introduced today are:

• WD Red SA500 NAS SATA SSD
  • Purpose-built for NAS enthusiasts, the latest WD Red SA500 NAS SATA SSD offers capacities from 500GB up to 4TB (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 superior endurance for heavy 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.

• WD Red NAS Hard Drive
  • Complementary to the WD Red SA500 NAS SATA SSD, the latest WD Red HDD capacity increase to 14TB¹ is designed for use in NAS systems with up to 8 bays. Ideal for small-and-home-office 24/7 environments, the drive supports up to a 180 TB/year workload rate.
• WD Red Pro NAS Hard Drive
  • Built like the WD Red HDD with a boost for professional NAS workloads and up to 14TB 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

The WD Red SA500 SSD comes in capacities of 500GB up to 2TB for the M.2 form factor and ranges in price from $72.00 up to $297.00 (MSRP USD) in the U.S. The 2.5-inch form factor of the WD Red SA500 SSD comes in capacities of 500GB up to 4TB and ranges in price from $75.00 to $600.00 (MSRP USD) in the U.S.

Both form factors of WD Red SA500 SSDs are currently available in limited quantities at the WD store in the U.S. and will be available globally in November at select Western Digital retailers, e-tailers, resellers, and system integrators. The WD Red NAS HDD in 14TB capacity is priced at $450.00 (MSRP USD) in the U.S. and the WD Red NAS Pro HDD in 14TB capacity is priced at $525.00 (MSRP USD) in the U.S. These 14TB HDD products will be available globally in November at select Western Digital retailers, e-tailers, resellers, system integrators and at the WD store.

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