WD Announces 5TB and 6TB Capacities For WD Red Pro and Black Lines

WD has announced the addition of 5TB and 6TB capacities to its WD Red Pro line of hard drives, which are designed for NAS systems equipped up to 16 drive bays and businesses with more expansive storage requirements than the standard WD Red drives. We previously reviewed the WD Red Pro 4TB model.

WD has announced the addition of 5TB and 6TB capacities to its WD Red Pro line of hard drives, which are designed for NAS systems equipped up to 16 drive bays and businesses with more expansive storage requirements than the standard WD Red drives. We previously reviewed the WD Red Pro 4TB model.

The new Red Pro capacities take advantage of an enhanced design and 128MB cache (compared to 64MB cache for the smaller capacities) with WD quoting data transfer rates up to 214Mb/s. In addition, the equipped WD NASware 3.0 features data protection, high NAS performance, and reliable integration.

WD lists the following features for their Red Pro line:

• Up to 16 Bay Shock Protection: With its multi-axis shock sensor, WD’s new NAS drives automatically detect subtle shock events. Coupled with its dynamic fly height technology, it can adjust each read-write function to compensate and protect the data to further protect the drive in large 1- to 16-bay NAS environments.
• NASware 3.0: The drives also include this exclusive advanced firmware. WD indicates that it allows for seamless integration, robust data protection and optimal performance for systems operating in the most demanding NAS environments.
• Vibration Protection: Its hardware vibration compensation technology monitors the drive to correct both linear and rotational vibration in real time. It also increases drive reliability and allows for high performance in higher vibration systems caused from drive-to-drive vibration as well as from the high speed fans used to cool the larger systems.

WD has also announced 5TB and 6TB additions to the company’s WD Black line of performance-heavy hard drives. The 3.5-inch, 7200 RPM drives are specifically designed for gamers and professionals that require high-performance out of their desktop systems and workstations.

With its 128MB cache, dual stage actuator technology, SATA 6Gb/s interface, and an integrated dual processor the WD Black hard drives offer high performance in a maximum-capacity drive. WD claims that their new 6TB Black model boasts speeds that are 29% faster in maximum data rate throughput compared to the previous capacities as well as a 10% increase in PCMark Vantage performance.

WD lists the following features for their Black line:

• Increased Reliability: StableTrac Technology secures the motor shaft inside of the hard drive to increase reliability, which helps to impact due to system-induced vibrations from other components. In addition, stabilizing the platters inside results in more accurate tracking in a particular sector during read and write operations. This helps to optimize performance and reliability.
• Increased DRAM cache: The Dynamic Cache Technology improves caching algorithms in real time to allocate and optimize cache between reads and writes. This movement of cache for read data helps to reduce congestion and increase overall performance.
• Efficient dual processing: A dual-core processor offers twice the processing capability as a single-core processor to maximize drive performance for faster read and write speeds.

Availability and Pricing

The WD Red Pro 5TB and 6TB drives are now available for $269.00 USD and $299.00 USD, respectively. WD Black drive is also available for $264.00 USD and $294.00 respectively. 

WD Black

WD Red Pro

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