WD Expands Red NAS HDD Line, Introduces 4TB & SFF Models

In our look at Seagate’s 4TB NAS-bound hard drive a couple of weeks ago, we reiterated just how odd it’s been that WD has been capping its Red NAS line to 3TB. Well, clearly someone at WD pays attention when we post reviews of competitive products, because lo and behold, the Red 4TB has just been announced, along with a special surprise: SFF Red drives.

Overall, the 4TB Red isn’t too dissimilar in specs compared to the 1~3TB models in the same line. All drives sport a SATA 6Gbit/s interface, have 64MB of cache, are spec’d at about ~150MB/s and carry a 3-year warranty. We’ll be taking a look at this drive soon, pitting it against both the 2TB Red and WD’s recently launched 4TB NAS drive.

Along with its 4TB model, WD has also introduced two SFF (2.5-inch) models, coming in at 750GB and 1TB. These models are perfect for those who want to take advantage of a SFF NAS, although I’ll plead ignorance and say that I had no idea such a thing existed. Generally speaking, when I think of “NAS”, I think “mass storage”, but in reality, that’s not the case at all: Redundancy is the important thing. If someone wants a SFF NAS and prefer (wisely) to use drives designed for the purpose, WD has now got you covered.

The 2.5-inch Red drives are not spec’d much different from the 3.5-inch ones, with the major exception being reduced cache, from 64 to 16MB.

Available soon, the 4TB desktop Red carries an SRP of $229, while the 1TB and 750GB 2.5-inchers are priced at $99 and $79, respectively.