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

By Phumeza Tontsi for Western Digital

Johannesburg, 10 Sep 2013

The WD Red product line.

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 1TB and 750GB capacities and a new 3.5-inch 4TB 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 4TB 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 SMEs 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 24x7 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 recognises 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 Web site 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 1TB - WD10JFCX retails for approximately R1 139.99 inclusive of VAT.
* 3.5-inch 4TB - WD40EFRX retails for approximately R2 620 inclusive of VAT.

Additional information about WD Red hard drives and limited warranty terms may be found on the company Web site at http://www.wd.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=810.

WD Red NAS hard drive launch partners

WD Branded Products

"WD Branded Product customers now have the ability to harness the power of WD Red hard drives and utilise the many advantages of storage designed and tested uniquely for (SOHO NAS devices) WD products," said Scott Vouri, vice-president, consumer marketing. "We look forward to delivering the advantages of the latest WD Red drives to our Branded Product customers."

I-O Data Device

"I-O Data has exclusively selected WD Red as our preferred storage partner because it has a three-year warranty and the vibration level is half of previous NAS models," said Tomomi Tsuchida, Executive Officer General Manager of Business Strategy Dept, I-O Data. "And, cooler operation has been reduced by six degrees Celsius, compared to previous NAS. WD Red is also an eco-friendly drive and has cut power consumption on our devices by up to 25%."

QNAP Systems

"Fuelled by the continuing growth of the global NAS market, WD Red NAS hard drives have been delivering QNAP one to five-bay NAS products a reliable solution for 24/7 operation for more than a year now," said Richard Lee, CEO of QNAP Systems. "With WD's new larger capacity 3.5-inch and small form factor 2.5-inch WD Red NAS hard drives, the next generation of storage optimised specifically for entry-level NAS is here."

Synology

"The WD Red drives are already popular among NAS owners. The Synology and WD Red duo is an ideal storage solution that offers unparalleled value in the NAS market. The combination provides peace of mind with great reliability, cool operation, and consistent high quality, while taking advantage of the award-winning DiskStation Manager OS. Now with 4TB and 2.5-inch 1TB Reds, this will provide even more flexibility," said Vic Hsu, CEO of Synology.

Thecus Tech

"As the new WD Red drives are ideal to work with Thecus's SME NAS systems, this also ensures that our users will have a broader selection of trusted HDDs for their specific needs - which is exactly in line with our philosophy of customer satisfaction," says Florence Shih, general manager at Thecus Technology.

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 Web site at www.wd.com.

Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ: WDC), Irvine, California, 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 Web site (www.westerndigital.com) to access a variety of financial and investor information.

This news release contains forward-looking statements, including statements relating to expected growth of the worldwide SOHO storage systems market, and growth in spending on NAS. 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 changes in markets, competition, demand, global economic or political conditions 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 annual report on Form 10-K, 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, the WD logo are registered trademarks of Western Digital Technologies, Inc. in the US and other countries; WD Red and NASware are trademarks of Western Digital Technologies, Inc. in the US and other countries. Other marks may be mentioned herein that belong to other companies. As used for storage capacity, one gigabyte (GB) = 1 billion bytes, one terabyte (TB) = one trillion bytes. Total accessible capacity varies depending on operating environment. See support.wdc.com for limited warranty terms and conditions.

Editor's notes:
WD product photos: http://wdbrand.com/
Editorial review samples of the WD Red 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch hard drive family may be requested via WD's Web site: http://www.wdc.com/en/company/pressroom/eval_request.asp.

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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 1TB and 3.5-inch 4TB NAS hard drives expand WD's power of choice.