Logically, a 20 TB HDD is not new as such, since we are talking about a capacity that is present on the market, including that of NAS. What makes this hard drive different is precisely the technology OptiNANDwhich is more than strange.
WD Red Pro 20 TB: the best HDD for NAS?
Well, maybe it’s based on its ultimate reliability, but the credentials definitely show that. Based on the fact that WD’s Red Pro line is the best of the best for these devices, and therefore the data presented and its performance and reliability has earned a good reputation, expect this hard drive to dominate at least the market in 2022.
And what makes it so special? Starting with the inclusion of ePMR (Energy Assisted Perpendicular Magnetic Recording) technology, WD has managed to achieve this in no less than 9 dishes that each pack in 2.2TB of capacity, so it’s a step practically if l ‘we take into account that they all turn with a motor to 7,200 rpm.
However, it will remain a SATA 6 Gb/s hard drive, mainly because there is still room for improvement in the bus, since it reaches a speed of 268 MB/s, not bad if you look back just a few years ago. Only the 18 TB version exceeds the minimum (272 MB/s). On the other hand, it is the quietest with only 32 dBA. Finally, the whole series incorporates 512 MB cache up to 64 MBso, what is this 64 GB that we have named?
The only hard drive with iNAND on the market
This hard drive is the only one in its range to contain an SSD, as it incorporates a high quality NAND Flash chip. 64 GB in the manner of OptiNAND where the oddity within the oddity is that this chip has no DRAM at all. But why does WD integrate NAND Flash chip as 64GB SSD inside?
It’s WD’s option not to use more DRAM cache or NOR Flash, at a lower price and with better options. What the company wants to do with this 64GB NAND Flash is to protect the data. Imagine that we have a power failure while the hard drive is writing data in quantity, because OptiNAND will take advantage of the rotational power generated by the platters to power the internal capacitors until the data stored in the cache is transferred to it, which is of a non-volatile type, keeping it waiting for power to be restored and it can pass it to the dishes.
That is, OptiNAND uses a NAND Flash chip as a backup SSD in case the drive fails and may lose cached data, diverting it to itself and saving it to its 64GB. Also and as indicated by WD, if we enable write caching in Windows, we can experience better performance in some specific scenarios with this drive.
He is WD Red Pro 20TB is already on sale at the price of 499 dollars.
