IRVINE, Calif., July 21, 2014 /PRNewswire/
-- WD®, a Western Digital® (NASDAQ:WDC) company,
and world leader in storage solutions, today announced the
expansion of its award-winning WD Red® line of SATA hard drives for
home and small office NAS (network attached storage) systems with
the release of a 5 TB1 and first-to-market 6 TB capacity
for NAS-specific storage and the introduction of WD Red Pro hard
drives that address the medium to large business NAS market.
Compatibility-tested with top NAS system manufacturers and
optimized for power and performance, WD Red 3.5-inch hard drives
are now shipping in 1 TB to 6 TB capacities; and the new WD Red Pro
3.5-inch hard drives are available in 2 TB to 4 TB capacities.
"With the expansion and evolution of the WD Red family, WD once
again is providing its loyal customers with increased capacity up
to 6 TB; improved bay count support with up to 8 bays; increased
product breadth with WD Red Pro; and more features with the latest
generation of NASware technology," said Matt Rutledge, senior vice president and general
manager, WD Storage Technology. "WD continues to listen to its
customers and bring exciting innovation to the category they helped
to create."
WD Red
A storage industry innovation first 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. With the release of 5 TB and 6 TB
models, the WD Red line of hard drives is now further enriched with
greater storage capacity and increased performance with 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.
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 24x7 dedicated support.
By increasing NASware 3.0 capability, the WD Red 1–6 TB capacity
drives are capable of supporting up to eight bay NAS systems with
no negative impact to performance.
WD Red Pro
Ideal for medium to large business environments, the new WD Red
Pro line of NAS hard drives supports eight to 16 bay NAS systems.
The enhanced design offers reliable, high performance storage
powered by NASware 3.0. By introducing the WD Red Pro, WD now has a
full portfolio NAS storage solution with the WD Red family (WD Red
and WD Red Pro) for both consumer and business NAS solutions.
WD Green
The WD Green™ line of cool and quiet hard drives is also seeing
capacity expansion with 5 TB and 6 TB additions for high capacity
consumer storage.
High capacity WD 6 TB hard drives will integrate seamlessly with
WD's My Cloud®, My Cloud EX2,
My Cloud EX4, My Cloud Mirror
personal cloud storage as well as My Book® and My Book Duo external
drive solutions and are compatible to work with a wide array of WD
OEM NAS partners. An 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.
Availability and Pricing
Available now at select U.S. retailers and distributors, WD Red
and WD Red Pro have three- and five-year limited regional
warranties, respectively. Manufacturer's suggested retail price
(MSRP) for WD Red 5 TB (model #: WD50EFRX) is $249.00 USD, and $299.00
USD for 6 TB (model #: WD60EFRX). Pricing for WD Red Pro 2
TB (model #: WD2001FFSX) is $159.00
USD, $199.00 USD for 3 TB
(model #: WD3001FFSX) and $259.00 USD
for 4 TB (model #: WD4001FFSX). More information about WD Red hard
drives including terms of the limited warranty may be found on the
company website at
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/internal/nas/.
WD Red NAS Hard Drive Launch Partners
ASUSTOR
"In the digital era of exponential data growth, the need for
versatile cloud storage that integrates storage, backup and file
sharing has never been greater. ASUSTOR NAS devices were created to
meet these demands for both home and enterprise users alike.
Innovative technology, an intuitive interface and compatibility for
Windows, Mac and Unix operating systems make ASUSTOR NAS devices
the optimal choice for creating a cloud storage space. When
creating a cloud storage space, stable hard disk storage is an
extremely important factor. The newly launched WD Red series not
only provides high capacity drives at 6TB/5TB, but also offers the
type of stable performance, energy efficiency and quiet operation,
that make it an excellent choice for use with ASUSTOR NAS devices
such as the AS-608T and AS-609RD," said Shawn Shu, president of ASUSTOR.
I-O DATA DEVICE, Inc.
"We think that new WD Red's enhanced compatibility,
capability and reliability as well as expanded capacity will lead
to expansion of the NAS product lines targeted at the SMB/SOHO
segment as the needs for the NAS system that offers high
performance and reliability as well as the effective platform to
share the ever ballooning business data increases. We also think
that WD Red Pro will contribute to the expansion of the overall NAS
market since it shares the same technology platform as the
enterprise products and is tailored for the NAS systems of medium
to large businesses. We look forward to offering NAS products to
the wider customer base with the new NAS optimized products", said
Tomomi Tsuchida, executive officer
general manager of Business Strategy Dept. of I-O DATA DEVICE,
Inc."
QNAP Systems, Inc.
"The constant growth of data and the need for intensive data
access across diverse applications continuously drive NAS users'
needs for hard drives with the highest capacity, reliability and
performance," said Richard Lee, CEO
of QNAP Systems, Inc. "The launch of WD Red 6TB NAS hard drives and
WD Red Pro NAS hard drives offer QNAP Turbo NAS products with more
reliable solutions for 24/7 operations to meet the specific
requirements of home NAS users and medium-to-large-scale businesses
respectively."
Synology Inc.
"Synology is excited for the launch of 6 TB WD Red and WD Red
Pro hard drives, allowing for more choices of hard drives to
fit various requirements. Together with WD Red
drives, Synology DiskStation and RackStation provides
users with reliable solutions that grow with their storage demands,
and efficiently centralize and share their data," said Rosiel Lee, senior sales and marketing
manager.
Thecus Tech., Corp.
"The introduction of the WD Red 6 TB and the WD Red Pro 4 TB
by WD provide SOHO and SMB users with tools that are essential for
an optimal data storage environment. These drives, along with our
Thecus NAS units, will provide high-powered, comprehensive
solutions to the storage industry," said Florence Shih, CEO at Thecus Technology
Corp.
WD
"The My Cloud family has received strong reception from
consumers," said Scott Vouri, vice
president of marketing for WD's content solutions group. "WD Red
drive offers ideal attributes for small NAS systems, including
My Cloud, in which customers will
benefit from those attributes in the future."
About WD
WD, a Western Digital company, is a long-time innovator and
storage industry leader. As a storage technology pacesetter, the
company produces reliable, high-performance hard disk drives and
solid state drives. These drives are deployed by OEMs and
integrators in desktop and mobile computers, enterprise computing
systems, embedded systems and consumer electronics applications, as
well as by the company in providing its own storage products. WD's
leading storage devices and systems, networking products, media
players and software solutions empower people around the world to
easily save, store, protect, share and experience their content on
multiple devices. WD was established in 1970 and is headquartered
in Irvine, California. For more
information, please visit the company's website at www.wd.com.
Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ: WDC), Irvine, Calif., is a global provider of
products and services that empower people to create, manage,
experience and preserve digital content. Its companies design and
manufacture storage devices, networking equipment and home
entertainment products under the WD, HGST and G-Technology brands.
Visit the Investor section of the company's website
(www.westerndigital.com) to access a variety of financial and
investor information.
This news release contains forward-looking statements, including
statements relating to the estimated growth and demand for hard
drive storage, the success of WD Red and WD Red Pro drives, the
expansion of the NAS market, and WD's continued innovation in this
category. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and
uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially
from those expressed in the forward-looking statements, including
the failure to accurately anticipate customers' changing needs and
emerging technological trends; the possibility that competing
technologies may be developed or brought to market that more
successfully meet the needs of customers or are more widely
accepted; the failure by certain suppliers to develop and
manufacture components, technology or production equipment for our
products; the success of such technologies and or other risks
detailed from time-to-time in our Securities and Exchange
Commission filings and reports, including, but not limited to, our
most recent quarterly report on Form 10-Q to which your attention
is directed. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on
these forward-looking statements, which speak as of the date
hereof, and WD undertakes no obligation to update these
forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or
circumstances.
Western Digital, WD, WD Red, NASware, My
Cloud, My Book, the WD logo
registered trademarks of Western Digital Technologies, Inc. in the
U.S. and other countries. Other marks may be mentioned herein that
belong to other companies. Pictures shown may vary from actual
products. Not all products may be available in all regions of the
world.
1 Total space available for user content will vary
based on RAID/JBOD/spanning configuration chosen. As used for
storage capacity, one megabyte (MB) = one million bytes, one
gigabyte (GB) = one billion bytes, and one terabyte (TB) = one
trillion bytes. Total accessible capacity varies depending on
operating environment.
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SOURCE WD