Skip to main content

Western Digital releases new line of high capacity, low power hard drives

wd releases new line high capacity low power hard drives wdreplus
Image used with permission by copyright holder
Western Digital, better known as WD in the market, released a new line of hard drives on March 10, geared toward today’s datacenter architects. The WD Re+ hard drive family is designed for power efficiency, consuming only six watts of power for six terabytes of space.

“Dollars and watts are the finite currencies in the modern datacenter,” said Matt Rutledge, senior vice president of storage technology at WD. “With a leading watt-per-gigabyte ratio and the long-trusted reliability of the WD Re hard drive platform, WD Re+ offers our customers with limited power budgets a WD Re-class choice for tier-2, high-intensity storage applications.”

Related: Western Digital puts extra horsepower into newest My Cloud network hard drives

The WD Re+ hard drives are designed to handle up to 550TB per year. They use the typical SATA interface and can reach sustained sequential data rates of up to 225 MB/s. That’s not as fast as a solid state drive of course, but it’s extremely quick for a mechanical drive. This speed is likely helped by very large cache sizes, which can reach up to 128MB.

Other features of the product line include vibration protection, dual actuator technology, and a multi-axis shock sensor designed to detect even the slightest shock events that could harm data. The WD Re+ drives also come with dual processors for redundancy and improved performance.

WD has incorporated some of its trademark technology into the hard drives as well. StableTrac, for instance, secures the motor shaft at both ends to reduce system-induced vibration. NoTouch ramp load technology makes sure that the recording head never touches the disk media, enhancing drive protection.

While designed for datacenters, these drives may also be of interest to home users who want extremely reliable long-term storage. Their many terabytes of space is sure to attract interest, as well.

All of the new hard drives will come with a five-year warranty from the company. More information on each of the products can be found on the WD product website.

Editors' Recommendations

Krystle Vermes
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Krystle Vermes is a professional writer, blogger and podcaster with a background in both online and print journalism. Her…
How to delete a file from Google Drive on desktop and mobile
Google Drive in Chrome on a MacBook.

Google Drive is an excellent cloud storage solution that can be accessed from numerous devices. Whether you do most of your Google Drive uploading or downloading from a PC, Chromebook, or mobile device, there’s going to come a time when you’ll need to delete a file (or two). Fortunately, the deletion process couldn’t be more straightforward. We’ve also put together this helpful guide to show you how to trash your Drive content a couple of different ways.

Read more
Windows 11 might nag you about AI requirements soon
Copilot on a laptop on a desk.

After recent reports of new hardware requirements for the upcoming Windows 11 24H2 update, it is evident that Microsoft is gearing up to introduce a bunch of new AI features. A new report now suggests that the company is working on adding new code to the operating system to alert users if they fail to match the minimum requirements to run AI-based applications.

According to Albacore on X (formerly known as Twitter), systems that do not meet the requirements will display a warning message in the form of a watermark. After digging into the latest Windows 11 Insider Build 26200, he came across requirements coded in the operating system for an upcoming AI File Explorer feature. The minimum requirement includes an ARM64 processor, 16GB of memory, 225GB of total storage, and a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite NPU.

Read more
How to delete your Gmail account (and what you need to know)
The top corner of Gmail on a laptop screen.

Is it time to part ways with your Gmail account? Whether you’re moving onto greener email pastures, or you want to start fresh with a new Gmail address, deleting your old Gmail account is something anyone can do. Of course, we’re not just going to bid you farewell without a guide all our own. If you need to delete your Gmail account, we hope these step-by-step instructions will make the process even easier.

Read more