Western Digital Red Drives

The popularity of Network-Attached Storage (NAS) devices is rapidly ramping up in both small businesses and homes, fueled by their usefulness and their increasing affordability. This surge in interest has led Western Digital to add a new family of hard disk drives - the WD Red family of NAS hard disk drives, even as Seagate drops production of 5,400 RPM desktop hard disk drives.

Of course, this begs the question - why choose a WD Red when the WD Green (formerly known as the WD Caviar Green) hard disk drive is also a low-powered, slower-spinning hard disk drive? It mainly lies in the WD NASware firmware, its comprehensive compatibility testing with common NAS systems and a dedicated WD Red 24x7 support line.

Western Digital currently offers three models, which differ only in their storage capacity :

Today, we are going to take a look at Western Digital's top Red drive - the WD30EFRX with 3 TB of storage capacity. Here are its key features :

• Exclusive NASware Technology - WD's exclusive NASware technology improves NAS storage performance by reducing common hard drive concerns in NAS systems including concerns for things like compatibility, integration, upgrade ability, reliability and cost of ownership that are experienced with a hard drive designed for desktop computers.

• NAS Compatibility - Advanced firmware technology built into every WD Red drive, enables seamless integration, robust data protection and optimal performance for systems operating in NAS and RAID environments.

• 3D Active Balance Plus - This enhanced dual-plane balance control technology significantly improves the overall drive performance and reliability. Hard drives that are not properly balanced may cause excessive vibration and noise in a multidrive system, reduce the hard drive life span, and degrade the performance over time.

• Enhanced Reliability - With a 35% MTBF improvement over standard desktop drives, the WD Red drive is designed and manufactured to be a more reliable and robust solution.

• Energy Efficient - Innovative technology reduces power consumption and lowers the operating temperature, resulting in a more reliable and affordable solution for always on 24x7 NAS environments.

• Premium Support - Exclusively for WD Red drive customers, a free dedicated 24/7 support line is available in English. Other regional support hours vary.

• Longer Warranty Coverage - The WD Red drive is backed by a 3-year limited warranty for greater peace of mind.

Now, let's take a closer look at this big daddy of the new WD Red family of hard disk drives!

Packaging

Western Digital sent us the WD30EFRX in a sealed anti-static plastic packet, with a sachet of dessicants inside to keep it dry. All you need to do is just cut open the plastic packet and slide out the drive.

Be sure to ground yourself before removing and handling the hard disk drive as static can damage it. In particular, you should try to avoid touching the exposed PCB located on the lower underside of the drive.

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