Western Digital will add 10-terabyte drives to its Red line up

[Cal Jeffrey]

Western Digital now has large-scale network attached storage (NAS) solutions in the form of 10 TB HelioSeal drives added to their Red line.

According to WD's subsidiary HGST, the Red and the Red Pro use platters hermetically sealed in casings filled with helium as opposed to air. The HelioSeal technology allows the plates to be thinner and spin faster and with less friction and turbulence.

"Less internal turbulence also makes it possible to add more disks and heads to achieve even higher capacity per HDD," said HGST.

More platters mean more storage in the same 3.5-inch form factor. The drives run cooler as well.

Both versions have the same capacity and sport a 256 MB cache. They both support WD's 3D Active Balance Plus and NASware 3.0 to improve performance and reliability. Current users of Western Digital’s My Cloud Pro Series NAS systems can plug and go, since the drives are fully compatible.

"Less internal turbulence also makes it possible to add more disks."

The differences between the Red and the Red Pro come down to speed, NAS system capacity, warranty, and price.

The Red is a 5,400 rpm drive compatible with NAS environments with up to eight drive bays. It is $494 and comes with a three-year warranty. It is more tailored for home or small business NAS setups.

The Red Pro spins at 7,200 rpm and is designed for NAS systems that have up to 16 drive bays. It costs $533 and has a five-year warranty. The Pro is designed for the larger NAS environments and has improved shock protection.

The drives will be released to retailers at the end of the month. Western Digital is also accepting pre-orders on its website. Pre-orders are “anticipated” to ship on May 31.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/69375-western-digital-add-10-terabyte-drives-red-line.html

 

[phillai]

It's about time we had much larger hard drives but that price makes me want to cry!!

 

[Igrecman]

I bet it will only show 9.5 TB of true available space.

 

[Cal Jeffrey]

It's about time we had much larger hard drives but that price makes me want to cry!!

Yeah. The helium really pumps up the price.

Actually, from a per GB standpoint, it's just a bit over par for WD drives.

 

[DelJo63]

I would be happy if the 3 & 4TB drives had a descent MTBF! The 2 & 4's are fine, but the poor reliability of the 3&4's make me shy on any WD larger capacity drives - - sort of like the Ghost of Xmas Past!

 

[VitalyT]

Too expensive, especially considering that 8TB drives now sell for about $300 on average.

I bet it will only show 9.5 TB of true available space.

No, just 9.2TB. Get 2 of these into RAID 1, and you will end up with just 8.9TB of available space.

I have here 2 x 8TB in RAID 1, resulting in 6.95TB of available space.

 

[Technosense]

$500 is big fat pass for me. I have an 8 bay NAS and use 4, 6 and 8tb red drives. No failures in 1.5 years so far. I'll upgrade the 4s to 8s before I spend that much on a 10. Get under $400 and you got a deal.

 

[misor]

It's about time we had much larger hard drives but that price makes me want to cry!!

Yeah. The helium really pumps up the price.

Actually, from a per GB standpoint, it's just a bit over par for WD drives.

did the helium escape and made you laugh?

I want cheaper, large capacity hdd but the price of the NAS hdd is very prohibitive...

 

[EClyde]

Conceivably, that's a lot of data to lose

 

[VitalyT]

At least, when those drives break, it is a big laugh, from the helium that escapes.

 

[mbrowne5061]

It's about time we had much larger hard drives but that price makes me want to cry!!

Yeah. The helium really pumps up the price.

Actually, from a per GB standpoint, it's just a bit over par for WD drives.

At 10TB, it won't be long before we start looking at drives as "price per TB"

 

[Cal Jeffrey]

At 10TB, it won't be long before we start looking at drives as "price per TB"

Right you are.

 

[Camikazi]

I bet it will only show 9.5 TB of true available space.

You always get what you pay for, but what you pay for might not always be the way the OS calculates it!

 

[goodbyeworld]

I bet it will only show 9.5 TB of true available space.

It's like the entire world of IT doesn't even know the fundamentals. 1 Terabyte is 1 Terabyte. However, what no one understands is that Windows and some other OS's might display Terabyte BUT they're really showing a Tebibyte. A Tebibyte is 1,024 Gibibytes, NOT 1000. If a hard drive says it's 10TB, that means it is ten legitimate Terabytes, as in powers of 10. However, when you shove that drive up your PC, it will show you LESS than 10TB only because it actually showing you the Tebibyte value, and not Terabyte, even though it says Terabyte.

TLDR: Around the year 2000, a Kilobyte became 1,000 Bytes. A Kilobyte is no longer 1,024 Bytes.

 

[Uncle Al]

Well, I applaud them for their efforts and hope it works great ...... and in a year or so the price could fall to 1/2 it current listing as others compete .....

 

[Igrecman]

TLDR: Around the year 2000, a Kilobyte became 1,000 Bytes. A Kilobyte is no longer 1,024 Bytes.

But the difference in size between 1,000 and 1,024 is only 2.4 %.
The the case of this drive the difference would be more than double that number. So something is not adding up. There is something more happening with the way an OS is handling the very large drives. Is it leaving some space for the MFT, that could get pretty large?

 

[goodbyeworld]

But the difference in size between 1,000 and 1,024 is only 2.4 %.
The the case of this drive the difference would be more than double that number. So something is not adding up. There is something more happening with the way an OS is handling the very large drives. Is it leaving some space for the MFT, that could get pretty large?

I think 2.4% is only for one level. 1000 is 2.4% (it's actually a bit less, 2.34%) of 1024. But since a TERA/TEBI is 4 times the actual byte (kilo, mega, giga, tera) then you times that 2.34*4 and get 9.36% which is roughly what Windows subtracts from what the hard drive tells you. Maybe my math is off here, I'm not sure.

 

[Camikazi]

But the difference in size between 1,000 and 1,024 is only 2.4 %.
The the case of this drive the difference would be more than double that number. So something is not adding up. There is something more happening with the way an OS is handling the very large drives. Is it leaving some space for the MFT, that could get pretty large?

No, it's right, a gigibyte is about 7.4% larger than a gigabyte and a tebibyte is about 10% larger than a terabyte and since Windows (and other similar OSes) measure in tebibyte while drive makers measure in terabyte the numbers get wider apart the larger they get. You do get exactly what you pay for since the drive makers tell you exactly what they give but Windows just measures it a different way which makes it seem smaller.

1 kilobyte  1 kB  10^3 = 1,000 bytes
1 megabyte  1 MB  10^6 = 1,000,000 bytes
1 gigabyte  1 GB  10^9 = 1,000,000,000 bytes
1 terabyte  1 TB  10^12 = 1,000,000,000,000 bytes
1 petabyte  1 PB  10^15 = 1,000,000,000,000,000 bytes

1 kibibyte  1 KiB  2^10 = 1,024 bytes
1 mebibyte  1 MiB  2^20 = 1,048,576 bytes
1 gibibyte  1 GiB  2^30 = 1,073,741,824 bytes
1 tebibyte  1 TiB  2^40 = 1,099,511,627,776 bytes
1 pebibyte  1 PiB  2^50 = 1,125,899,906,842,624 bytes

Just some quick info to show why the % keeps getting bigger, that innocent looking little 24 bytes makes a big difference the more you add them.