WD expands family of purpose-built network attached storage hard drives with world’s first 2.5-inch WD Red

New 2.5-inch up to 1 TB and 3.5-inch 4 TB NAS Hard Drives Expand WD’s Power of Choice

WD, a Western Digital company and storage industry leader, has announced the expansion of its category-leading WD Red line of SATA hard drives specifically designed for home and small office NAS (network attached storage) systems with one- to five-drive bays. WD Red hard drives are now available in a 2.5-inch form factor offering 1 TB and 750 GB capacities and a new 3.5-inch 4 TB capacity. Powered by NASware 2.0 technology, WD Red is compatibility-tested with top NAS system manufacturers and optimised for performance and reduced power consumption.

“WD defined the NAS drive category by leading development of hard drives specifically built for small NAS environments,” says Matt Rutledge, vice president of client storage for WD. “The WD Red product line serves the unique environment of NAS and meets the growing demand for affordable, reliable, and compatible storage through dialogue with our NAS partners and customer advocacy for WD Red, we saw the need for additional capacity in the 3.5-inch form factor and delivered our new 4 TB offering. We also wanted to deliver a highly reliable and compatible 2.5-inch hard drive built specifically for small NAS. This small form factor enables our customers to use high capacity NAS hard drives with high performance, quiet operation, and low power consumption in compact NAS enclosures. We see an opportunity for growth in smaller-footprint NAS systems, media players and other industrial applications. Our pride in our product and our vision is shared with our customers.”

Says Kalvin Subbadu, WD Components Sales Manager – South Africa, “The need for more capacity is also apparent in the local market and with the uptake of small to medium NAS devices, augmenting our WD Red hard drive range with a 4TB makes sense. As consumers download more and more digital content and SMBs struggle with the exponential increase of data, the new 4TB WD Red drive delivers an additional 5TB more data in a 5 Bay NAS solution – that’s a total of 20TB of data.”

“Furthermore, with NAS vendors now manufacturing smaller form factor NAS enclosures, this highlighted the demand for a 2.5-inch WD Red hard drive. The market is poised for significant growth in this sector and according to IDC, the Small Form Factor NAS Opportunity is expected to grow by 147% from 2013 to 2014. WD is ideally positioned for this growth with the introduction of its WD Red 2.5-inch format,” says Subbadu.

Top industry analysts see NAS continuing to represent one of the fastest-growing segments of the worldwide SOHO storage systems market. From both revenue and terabyte perspectives, NAS will continue to experience strong growth through the forecast period (to 2015), driven by a major shift of storage deployments toward IP-connected systems. (Worldwide Personal and Entry Level Storage Tracker IDC 2013).

The next generation of WD Red hard drives deliver the best NAS experience for customers with a new version of NASware 2.0, which further improves drive reliability and protects customer data in the event of a power loss or disruption. WD Red hard drives also feature 3D Active Balance Plus, an enhanced balance control technology, which significantly improves overall drive performance and reliability. Exclusive for WD Red customers, WD offers free premium 24×7 dedicated phone support and a three-year limited warranty.

The addition of a new form factor and higher capacity WD Red hard drives further underscores WD’s “Power of Choice” mission for client hard drive solutions. WD recognizes the diverse challenges of customers and their applications and strives to empower them with storage solutions tailored to best suit their specific needs.

Integrating with WD NAS solutions, WD Red hard drives are qualified to work with a wide array of WD OEM partners. A regularly updated list of WD Red-qualified products and manufacturers is available on the WD website at http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=810.

Price and Availability

The following drives are available through select distributors and resellers from October 2013 onwards and are covered by a three-year limited warranty.

Recommended Retail Pricing:

• 2.5-inch WD Red 1 TB – WD10JFCX retails for approximately R1 139.99 inclusive of V.A.T.
• 3.5-inch 4 TB – WD40EFRX retails for approximately R2 620.00 inclusive of V.A.T.