WD Announces 6TB Sized Red Pro and Black HDDs

Western Digital just announced the expansion of the portfolio with not just one, but two 6TB drives. Actually, that’s not entirely true as there’s also new 5TB drives in the announcement, making it four new drives in total.

The first two are from the WD Black line, a drive for performance users who need a lot of capacity that also performs amazingly. Previously the Black series was available up to 4TB, making many opt for another model with more capacity. Now there is no need for compromise anymore and the new drive is said to be up to 29% faster than the previous 4TB model. The drives combine a 7200 RPM spindle speed with 128MB cache, dual stage actuator technology and an integrated dual processor to deliver this great performance. The WD Black 5TB drive comes with an MSRP of $264 USD while the 6TB model will set you back $294, but you also get a 5-year warranty on the drive.

The second new series that gets an update is the WD Red Pro and that series is also getting both a 5TB and 6TB version. Just like in the Black series, the WD Red Pro series had only been available with up to 4TB capacity so far, making a lot of people opt for the 6TB Red variant instead. These drives also feature an enhanced design, WD’s NASware 3.0 technology, 128 MB cache and can deliver a performance of up to 214MB/s. The drives are certified for use in systems with up to 16-bays and come with 2 additional years on the warranty over the normal Red drives, making it 5-years in total. They are of course built with Vibration Protection, which is why they are suited for systems with so many drive bays. The 5TB version comes with an MSRP of $269 while the 6TB model costs slightly more at an $299 MSRP.

WD Black 5TB and 6TB Features:

• Increased Reliability -StableTrac Technology (2 TB and larger models) secures the motor shaft inside of the hard drive to increase reliability and help reduce impact due to system-induced vibrations from other components. By stabilizing the platters inside, the WD Black drive results in more accurate tracking in a particular sector during read and write operations, optimizing 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.
• Industry-leading 5-year limited warranty – Compared to standard hard drives, the WD Black drive endures more strenuous and aggressive internal testing over a longer period of time, resulting in it being backed by an industry leading 5-year limited warranty.

WD Red Pro 5TB and 6TB Features:

• Up to 16 Bay Shock Protection – Equipped with a multi-axis shock sensor, the drive automatically detects subtle shock events and, along with dynamic fly height technology, adjusts each read-write function to compensate and protect the data, further protecting the drive in large 1- to 16-bay NAS environments.
• NASware 3.0 – Exclusive advanced firmware enables seamless integration, robust data protection and optimal performance for systems operating in the demanding NAS environment.
• Vibration Protection – Hardware vibration compensation technology monitors the drive to correct both linear and rotational vibration in real time, further increasing drive reliability and enabling 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.
• Longer Warranty Coverage – Complimenting WD Red drives at a 3-year limited warranty, WD Red Pro offers longer warranty coverage with a 5-year limited warranty.