Your data is vital. Don’t compromise on your storage solution.
WD Red hard drives are designed specifically for home and small office NAS systems. WD’s exclusive NASware technology enables seamless integration, robust data protection and optimal performance for systems operating in NAS and RAID environments.

Compatibility – WD’s exclusive NASware technology, built into every WD Red hard drive.
NASware improves NAS storage by reducing common hard drive concerns in NAS systems including compatibility, integration, ability to upgrade, reliability and cost of ownership.

Error recovery controls.
Desktop drives are not traditionally designed for RAID environments and have controls that prevent the RAID controller from assisting in the event of an error which can cause the hard drive to drop off the RAID after a period of time. Rebuilding the system often requires several hours and can have a significant impact on downtime and productivity.

Noise and vibration.
Typically designed for single drive applications, average desktop drives are not optimized for multi-drive systems, which have higher noise and vibration levels. When these drives are added to a NAS, the additional vibration can reduce the reliability and life span of the drive. WD Red drives feature 3D Active Balance Plus which minimizes vibration and noise.

Reliability.
Most desktop drives are not designed for the high operation temperatures or the 24×7 operating environments making them less reliable when used in a NAS system.

Desktop hard drives are designed for desktop computers.
Desktop hard drives are designed for optimum performance and reliability in a desktop personal computer. Although they are an affordable alternative to enterprise-class drives, desktop drives have a higher level of risk for potential data loss and failure in an always-on RAID configured NAS system. Specific issues that you may experience using desktop drives in a NAS or RAID environment include:

Compatibility – Desktop hard drives are not always tested for compatibility in NAS and can present problems during integration.

Beyond desktop with NASware
WD Red drives include WD’s exclusive NASware technology that addresses many of the challenges a traditional desktop hard drive has in a NAS system. WD works directly with our partners to test compatibility and reduce our customer’s guess work as to which drive is right for their NAS system. Designed to deliver a better customer experience in small NAS systems, this innovative firmware finely balances the most important attributes of performance, power, and reliability in multiple drive environments. The unique algorithms in NASware optimize power and performance without compromising on the attributes that NAS-system owners value.

Save power and money.
NASware optimizes power use resulting in significant power savings and lower hard drive operating temperatures. This improves the overall reliability and performance of the drive and reduces the NAS cost of ownership.

Intelligent error recovery.
With built in intelligent error recovery controls, NASware also prevents hard drives from being dropped off the RAID due to extended error recovery. This provides more availability and less down time rebuilding the RAID.

Important Features for System Integrators:

In addition to features that make WD Red drives perfect for populating or upgrading NAS systems, NASware brings features that system integrators need when building specialized NAS systems.

• Streaming support – NASware provides built-in compatibility with the ATA Streaming Feature Set which is important for AV storage applications such as Windows Media Center.

• SMART Command Transport (SCT) support – NASware allows monitoring and measuring of drive performance via the SMART command set. SMART can return data like thermal profiles, drive access statistics and more. NASware also delivers temperature accuracy within 1°C.

• Power management support – Enables optimized power usage within the NAS system.

• BIC Performance – Optimized seek to provide BIC performance while reducing the power and acoustics

Ideal for

• 1-5 bay home or small office/home office NAS