Western Digital today announced the WD Red NAS hard drives, a line of SATA hard drives specifically designed for home and small office NAS (network attached storage) systems with one to five drive bays. The drives are compatibility-tested with top NAS box manufacturers and optimized for power and performance,and available in 3.5-inch 1 TB, 2 TB and 3 TB capacities.
The WD Red line features NASware technology, that according to WD, is designed to improve reliability, system performance and to simplify the integration process. Unfortunately the WD site doesn't give more information on NASware, other than that it is: "advanced firmware technology built into every WD Red drive, enables seamless integration, robust data protection and optimal performance for systems operating in NAS and RAID environments." Why this is exactly better than any other hard drives? We don't have a clue.
WD Red hard drives also feature 3D Active Balance Plus, according to WD, a balance control technology, which should improve the overall drive performance and reliability but again we can hardly believe this is more than another attempt of the WD marketing department.
With the introduction of the Red line, Western Digital now has four differently colored lines: WD Blue (solid performance and reliability for everyday computing) WD Green (cool, quiet, eco-friendly), WD Black (maximum performance for power computing), and WD Red (home and small office NAS). While we have a hard time believing h the marketing terms used by Western Digital, the usage of colors to differentiate in consumer needs seems to be an improvement. For the average HDD buyer it will be much easier to find what they are looking for.
The new WD Red hard drives are available now and manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP) for the WD Red 1 TB drive is $109.00 USD, the 2 TB drive is $139.00 USD and the 3 TB drive is $189.00 USD. WD is offering free premium 24x7 dedicated support and a three-year limited warranty on the WD Red NAS drives.
