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

WD Red and WD Red Pro 10TB NAS Hard Drive (Graphic: Business Wire)

SAN JOSE, Calif.--()--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.

About Western Digital

Western Digital is an industry-leading provider of storage technologies and solutions that enable people to create, leverage, experience and preserve data. The company addresses ever-changing market needs by providing a full portfolio of compelling, high-quality storage solutions with customer-focused innovation, high efficiency, flexibility and speed. Our products are marketed under the HGST, SanDisk and WD brands to OEMs, distributors, resellers, cloud infrastructure providers and consumers. Financial and investor information is available on the company's Investor Relations website at investor.wdc.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains certain forward-looking statements, including statements concerning the development, performance and capacity, capabilities, applications, and availability of the WD Red and WD Red Pro 10TB HDDs and the HelioSeal platform. There are a number of risks and uncertainties that may cause these forward-looking statements to be inaccurate including, among others: volatility in global economic conditions; business conditions and growth in the storage ecosystem; impact of competitive products and pricing; market acceptance and cost of commodity materials and specialized product components; actions by competitors; unexpected advances in competing technologies; our development and introduction of products based on new technologies and expansion into new data storage markets; risks associated with acquisitions, mergers and joint ventures; difficulties or delays in manufacturing; and other risks and uncertainties listed in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"), including our most recently filed periodic report to which your attention is directed. The company undertakes no obligation to update the information in this release in the event facts or circumstances change after the date of this release.

© 2017 Western Digital Corporation or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Western Digital, HelioSeal, My Cloud, NASware and WD Red are registered trademarks or trademarks of Western Digital Corporation or its affiliates in the U.S. and/or other countries. All other marks are the property of their respective owners. As used for storage capacity, one terabyte (TB) = one trillion bytes. Total accessible capacity varies depending on operating environment. Product specifications subject to change without notice. Not all products are available in all regions of the world.

WD Red and WD Red Pro 10TB NAS Hard Drive Launch Partners

ASUStor, Inc.

"The WD Red and WD Red Pro 10TB hard drives are well-suited for addressing the growing data storage needs of our home and SMB customer-base. High-definition videos and photos are driving up capacity demands as our customers want to store engaging content and multimedia so it can always be accessible. The WD Red line of hard drives provide the type of reliability, performance and capacity needed to power a private cloud, so home and SMB users can create a highly economical and secure archive,“ said Shawn Shu, president, ASUStor, Inc.

QNAP Systems, Inc.

“Over the past five years, Western Digital NAS hard drives have demonstrated reliability and high performance to make them well suited for 24/7, data-intense NAS operating environments. With the addition of 10TB capacity, the new helium-based WD Red and WD Red Pro NAS hard drives offer an ideal pairing with QNAP Turbo NAS products for use in a variety of SMB and enterprise NAS applications,” said Meiji Chang, general manager, QNAP.

Synology Inc.

“Synology is excited for the introduction of the helium-based 10TB WD Red and WD Red Pro hard drives. Whether it’s sharing high-definition multimedia content around the house, backing up photos at the studio, or managing distributed file syncing and disaster recovery at the office, our users require dependable data storage when creating their private cloud with Synology NAS. These drives will equip users with a wider range of reliable, high-performance hard drive options to best fit their current and next-generation NAS system needs,” said Alex Wang, CEO, Synology America Corp.

Thecus Tech., Corp.

“The WD Red 10 TB drives bring a much-needed capacity increase for SOHO and SMB users managing their personal and private clouds. These drives, along with our Thecus NAS units, will provide high-powered, comprehensive solutions to the storage industry, and we are pleased to expand our work with Western Digital to provide high-performance, reliable, and cost-effective NAS solutions for our SOHO and SMB customers," said Florence Shih, President, Thecus.

Contacts

Western Digital Corporation Public Relations
Heather Skinner, +1 949.672.7920
heather.skinner@wdc.com
or
Western Digital Corporation Investor Relations
Bob Blair, +1 949.672.7834
robert.blair@wdc.com

Contacts

Western Digital Corporation Public Relations
Heather Skinner, +1 949.672.7920
heather.skinner@wdc.com
or
Western Digital Corporation Investor Relations
Bob Blair, +1 949.672.7834
robert.blair@wdc.com