SATA Hard Drives offer 3.0 Gb/sec data transfer rate.
Press Release Summary:
Model WD RE2 (RAID Edition) 500 Gb SATA hard drives feature Native Command Queuing and 16 Mb cache for multi-user, random I/O environments. Time Limited Error Recovery reduces drive fallout from extended hard drive error-recovery processes, and RAFF(TM) technology provides vibration tolerance. Reliability-rated at 1.2 million hours MTBF at 100% duty cycle, they are designed for use in network attached storage, direct attached server storage, and video surveillance.
Original Press Release:
WD Now Shipping Highest Capacity, Highest Reliability Enterprise-Class SATA Hard Drives
WD RE2 500 GB SATA Hard Drives Deliver Industry-Leading 1.2 Million Hours MTBF at 100 Percent Duty Cycle
LAKE FOREST, Calif., April 4 / -- Addressing a growing enterprise market for high capacity, highly reliable storage, Western Digital Corp. (NYSE:WDC) today announced it is now shipping its WD RE2 (RAID Edition) 500 GB SATA hard drives. With 3.0 Gb/s data transfer rate, WD RE2 hard drives feature Native Command Queuing (NCQ) and 16 MB cache for improved performance in multi-user, random I/O environments. WD RE2 hard drives are designed for network attached storage, direct attached server storage and video surveillance environments that require 100 percent duty cycle and carry a 5-year limited warranty.
The demand for high capacity, highly reliable storage continues to grow. According to market research firm Gartner, the number of EIDE or ATA/SATA terabytes shipped into multi-user servers and storage systems is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate of 30.7 percent between 2006 and 2009. (Gartner Dataquest, September 2005)
Addressing this growing market, WD RE2 drives are reliability-rated at 1.2 million hours MTBF (mean time between failure) in high duty cycle environments. These new enterprise-class drives provide high reliability and performance in demanding server and network-attached storage for online applications such as file servers, e-mail servers, database servers, Web servers, video surveillance and scientific computing. WD RE2 500 GB is ideal for nearline applications such as virtual tape libraries (VTL), disk-to-disk backup, nearline content addressable storage and tiered storage environments.
Pioneered by WD, Time Limited Error Recovery (TLER) maximizes WD RE2 500 GB reliability in the enterprise by significantly reducing drive fallout from extended hard drive error-recovery processes common to desktop drives. WD RE2 hard drives also employ RAFF(TM) (Rotary Acceleration Feed Forward) technology, which provides best-in-class vibration tolerance by optimizing operation and performance when the drives are used in servers and storage arrays where rotational vibration robs performance.
"As market adoption of both Enterprise SATA and WD's RAID Edition hard drives has continued to grow, WD has leveraged its extensive experience gained from previous generation RAID Edition drives, as well as our enterprise-class WD Raptor® drives, to develop a hard drive perfectly suited for enterprise storage: high capacity, reliability, performance and advanced features," said Tom McDorman, vice president and general manager of enterprise storage for WD. "With the introduction of WD RE2 500 GB enterprise hard drives, WD delivers the greatest reliability and capacity of all SATA hard drives available."
"WD RE2 drives are specifically designed for RAID environments and complement LSI Logic MegaRAID controller products," said Luca Bert, director of DAS product management, Engenio Storage Group, LSI Logic. "By combining MegaRAID products with the performance, capacity and reliability of WD RE2 drives, customers are able to create highly reliable, cost-effective storage solutions."
WD RE2 500 GB Availability & Pricing
WD RE2 500 GB (model WD5000YS) hard drives are currently shipping in volume. Estimated pricing for WD RE2 500 GB is $349.99 USD. The WD Online Store is also currently offering for a limited time free shipping on orders over $200 USD. Additional information about WD RE2 hard drives may be found on the company's Web site at http://www.westerndigital.com/products.
About WD
WD, one of the storage industry's pioneers and long-time leaders, provides products and services for people and organizations that collect, manage and use digital information. The company's core business produces reliable, high-performance hard drives that keep users' data close-at-hand and secure from loss.
WD was founded in 1970. The company's storage products are marketed to leading systems manufacturers and selected resellers under the Western Digital and WD brand names. Visit the Investor section of the company's Web site (www.westerndigital.com) to access a variety of financial and investor information.
