Western Digital increased the capacity of their Red and Red Pro NAS hard disk lines to 10TB. Acquiring the Helioseal technology via their HGST acquisition, which enables Helium filled hermetically sealed drives of even higher capacities, WD expanded the Red lines to 8TB (our review of those here) using that tech. Helioseal has certainly proven itself, as over 15 million such units have shipped so far.

We knew it was just a matter of time before we saw a 10TB Red and Red Pro, as it has been some time since the HGST He10 launched, and Western Digital's own 10TB Gold (datacenter) drive has been shipping for a while now.

  • Red 10TB:        $494
  • Red Pro 10TB: $533

MSRP pricing looks a bit high based on the lower cost/GB of the 8TB model, but given some time on the market and volume shipping, these should come down to match parity with the lesser capacities.

Press blast appears after the break.

WESTERN DIGITAL EXPANDS NAS-OPTIMIZED HARD DRIVE OFFERINGS TO

10TB WITH  ADVANCED STORAGE HELIUM-BASED

WD RED AND WD RED PRO HARD DRIVES

 

Award-winning Line Offers Optimal Performance, High Capacity and

Reliability for Always-On NAS Systems

SAN JOSE, CA — May. 17, 2017— Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ: WDC) , a global data storage technology and solutions leader, today announced the expansion of its award-winning WD Red®  and WD Red Pro NAS hard drives lineup with the introduction of 10TB capacity models optimized for use in personal, home and small to medium business NAS systems. Western Digital has shipped more than 15 million helium-based high capacity drives into multiple applications, including for NAS systems, to date and is continuing to support customers with higher capacities and outstanding reliability. The WD Red line of NAS hard drives allow customers to scale up or down to meet their changing NAS storage needs.  

“In July 2012, we introduced the WD Red line to address the unique performance, compatibility and scalability challenges facing home and small business NAS customers,” said Brendan Collins, vice president, devices business unit at Western Digital. “Five years and over 16 million WD Red family hard drives later, we continue to advance the platform, bringing our innovative HelioSeal platform and other advanced technologies that allow customers to meet their evolving private cloud needs.”

WD Red 10TB NAS Hard Drive

Introduced in 2012, WD Red hard drives address the unique environment of NAS and the growing demand for affordable, reliable and compatible storage that reduces customer total cost of ownership.Designed with Western Digital’s HelioSeal® helium-technology, the WD Red 10TB hard drive provides higher capacity and performance to meet the increasing storage needs of always-on, single-to-8-bay NAS systems. The helium-based design enables a 25 percent capacity increase from the WD Red 8TB NAS storage drive. With support for up to 16 bays in tower- and rack-based systems, the WD Red Pro 10TB hard drive delivers the same high performance, reliability and capacity to systems operating in up to 16 bay NAS systems.

Features and Specifications:

WD Red / WD Red Pro 10TB

·      HelioSeal: Bringing Western Digital’s fourth generation, exclusive HelioSeal technology in 10TB capacity to the NAS storage market

·      3D Active Balance Plus, an enhanced balance control technology that improves overall drive performance and reliability

·      Seamless integration with Western Digital’s My Cloud® Pro Series NAS and My Cloud Expert Series NAS systems designed specifically for the creative community to enable seamless transfer of content between devices in any location, whether users are shooting remotely or editing at home

·      NASware® 3.0, an enhanced version of WD’s original NASware technology, designed to improve reliability and system performance, reduce customer downtime and to simplify the integration process

·      Optimized performance class – 5400 RPM class for SOHO environments, 7200 RPM class for up to 16 bay NAS systems

     The WD Red and WD Red Pro 10TB drives are finalizing compatibility testing with a number of leading NAS system providers. WD provides a compatibility list of WD Red-qualified products and manufacturers that is available on the WD website at https://www.wdc.com/products/internal-storage/wd-red.html.

Availability

     The new WD Red and WD Red Pro 10TB hard drives are available now at select U.S. retailers and distributors. The WD Red 10TB NAS hard drives feature a three-year limited warranty and a $494.00 USD manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP) (model #: WD100EFAX). The WD Red Pro 10TB drives feature a five-year limited warranty and a $533.00 USD MSRP (model #: WD101KFBX). More information about WD Red hard drives, including terms of the limited warranty may be found on the company website at https://www.wdc.com/products/internal-storage/wd-red.html.