Western Digital's NAS-optimised 'WD Red' drives are now available in 2.5-inch models at 750GB and 1TB, and a new 4TB model pushes up the maximum capacity of the existing 3.5-inch range.
The new 2.5-inch drives are aimed at small-scale NAS systems. Matt Rutledge, vice president of client storage for WD, said in a press release: "We ... see an opportunity in smaller-footprint NAS systems, media players and other industrial applications. Our pride in our product and our vision is shared with our customers.
Most existing NAS solutions aimed at home users, and many hard-drive based media players, use larger 3.5-inch drives which offer advantages of capacity and price, at the cost of higher power usage and significantly larger physical volume over the 2.5-inch drives found in laptops and rack-mount servers.
| Model | Form Factor | Capacity | RRP (AUD) | RRP (NZD) |
| WD750BFCX | 2.5-inch | 750GB | $89 | $119 |
| WD10JFCX | 1TB | $119 | $139 | |
| WD40EFRX | 3.5-inch | 1TB | $259 | $309 |
Western Digital launched its first WD Red drives in July last year, in the traditional 3.5-inch 'desktop' form factor only. The drives, reviewed here were initially available in 1TB, 2TB and 3TB capacities.
Designed for use in home and SOHO/SMB network attacked storage (NAS) devices, Western Digital claims its Red drives are designed, built and physically balanced to weather the sort of 24/7 continuous usage expected in NAS environments, which standard desktop hard drives are not designed for. The company offers a separate range of enterprise drives for use in servers and large-scale NAS implementations.
