Western Digital has announced a new 26 TB hard disk drive in its WD Red Pro series. The company also unveiled higher capacities across its professional NAS (network attached storage) product suite using the new hard disk drive.
26 TB WD Red Pro
The new 26 TB hard disk drive is part of Western Digital’s Red family of hard drives. Red and Red Pro drives are designed for use in NAS systems. NAS systems are very demanding as they support multi-user environments and typically run continuously 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The new 26 TB hard drive supports a workload of up to 5,550 TB per year. It also boasts an impressive 2.5 million hours MTBF (mean time between failures).
The drive is equipped with Western Digital’s proprietary OptiNAND technology for improved data tracking and efficiency.
208 TB G-RAID Shuttle 8
Western Digital’s new 208TB G-RAID Shuttle 8 is a transportable eight-bay hardware RAID solution. It’s designed to deliver massive storage and seamless backup whether you are on location or in the studio. The device supports a versatile range of RAID configurations including 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50 and 60. It also looks to delivers super-fast transfer speeds of up to 1,700 MB/s read and 1,500 MB/s write in the default RAID 5 setup. Additionally, you can daisy-chain the G-RAID Shuttle 8 with up to five additional devices for maximum connectivity and efficiency.
104 TB G-RAID Shuttle 4
Western Digital’s 104 TB G-RAID Shuttle 4 is a compact and transportable four-bay hardware RAID solution. It’s built for real-time video editing and supports multi-stream 4K, 8K and VR workflows. The device is preconfigured in RAID 5 for optimal performance and redundancy, but also supports versatile RAID 0, 1 and 10 setups. Again, it can be daisy-chained with up to five additional devices.
52TB G-RAID Project 2
Western Digital’s 52 TB G-RAID Project 2 delivers high-performance storage with two enterprise-grade Ultrastar hard drives for rapid data access and sustained transfer speeds. It comes pre-configured in RAID 0 for optimal performance and is compatible with Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C for transfer speeds up to 10 Gbps.
26 TB G-Drive Project
Western Digital’s 26 TB G-Drive Project is designed to back up and protect valuable project work. It’s also compatible with Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C for transfer speeds up to 10 Gbps. Additionally, it features a SanDisk Professional Pro-Blade SSD Mag slot. This enables modular SSD performance to enhance your workflows with fast, efficient file sharing and seamless editing across devices.
26 TB G-Drive
Western Digital’s 26TB G-Drive features a 10 Gbps USB-C interface for fast backups and efficient workflows. It also offers read speeds up to 260 MB/s and write speeds up to 270 MB/s. In addition, the G-Drive has an anodized all-aluminum enclosure with anchor points for attaching to a DIT cart.
What we think
As video resolutions have increased, so have the file sizes and data transfer rates associated with them. Conventional magnetic recording hard disk drives offer larger capacities and lower prices than SSDs but can’t keep up with the data transfer speeds needed for 4K and 8K video editing. However, the RAID configuration with Western Digital’s new devices deliver SSD transfer speeds with the capacity and reliability of hard disk drives.
Also, they support multi-user environments for projects being worked on by larger teams. All this power comes with a hefty price tag but for video professionals who need the highest performance, Western Digital’s new storage solutions could be a worthy investment.
Pricing and availability
Western Digital’s new 26 TB WD Red Pro hard disk drive will retail at $569. The 208 TB G-RAID Shuttle 8 will cost $8,199, the 104 TB G-RAID Shuttle 4 will be $4,499, and the 52 TB G-RAID Project 2 will be $1,699. Finally, the 26 TB G-Drive Project will be priced at $999 and the 26 TB G-Drive will retail at $649.
Western Digital will showcase all these new products at the NAB Show in Las Vegas on April 6th to 9th.
