Western Digital now offers up to 10 terabytes of storage space in a single network-attached drive, with brand-new entries in its Red and Red Pro ranges. This has been made possible with the use of helium inside the drives’ hermetically sealed casings, which makes it possible for thinner platters and therefore more of them in the same form factor.
Although solid-state storage is the darling of fast-booting systems and gamers everywhere, the humble hard drive still holds up when it comes to larger-scale storage. Although hardly cheap — a 10TB hard drive from the Red Pro range will set you back $535 — that is thousands of dollars cheaper than an equivalent solid-state option.
The standard Red drive is a little cheaper, with a price tag of $495, though both feature the same fourth-generation HelioSeal technology, the original version of which Western Digital acquired when it purchased HGST in 2012. That led to the creation of WD’s 8TB drives and paved the way for this latest release in its network storage range.
Red and Red Pro iterations of this design were expected, as it released a 10TB version of its enterprise-focused Gold range in 2016.
The Red drive operates at 5,400 RPM, while the Red Pro version ups the ante to 7,200 RPM. Both drives however come with 256MB of cache. They also support 3D Active Balance Plus, which we’re told improves overall drive performance and reliability.
Both Red and Red Pro ranges are fully compatible with Western Digital’s My Cloud Pro Series network storage systems, so they can be integrated in existing systems seamlessly. The integration process is also said to be improved thanks to WD’s NASware 3.0, which also improves drive reliability.
Both 10TB drives should already be available from select U.S. retailers, and all purchases come with a three-year warranty included as standard. The Red Pro drive however, enhances that with a five-year warranty, which covers its slightly inflated price tag.
