WD Red 8TB Helium-Filled WD80EFZX NAS HDD Review

Introduction

It has been quite a long time since I have dusted off the HDD test equipment, so I was certainly excited to get the new helium-filled WD Red 8TB in the lab. With Seagate now expanding their SMR technology into all product ranges, it's good to see WD getting their technology where it needs to be to compete in the market.

With advancements in technology, WD has now brought their HelioSeal technology to the NAS market in the 8TB WD Red. This drive like the 6TB utilizes NASware 3.0 which significantly improves the reliability and performance, along with StableTrac and 3D Active Balance improving the resilience of the Red platform in multi-drive installations.

The 8TB Red is supported in up to eight-bay tower platforms while the Red Pro is dedicated to Rackmount infrastructure. To get into more detail, let's slide down and check out the spec sheet from WD.

Diving down into the specifications, we start with the model number, WD80EFZX. From here we move down and find the 8TB using the SATA 6Gb/s interface with a formatted capacity of 8TB. The form factor is the standard 3.5" with Advanced Format and Native Command Queuing support.

Sliding down into the performance section, the internal transfer rate is listed at 178 MB/s featuring a 128MB cache and a "5400 RPM Class" spindle speed. Load/Unload is listed at 600,000 while the MTBF is at one million hours. Warranty is still the standard three years on the Red platform while power consumption is said to average 6.4 watts in a read/write situation and 5.4 watts at idle.

MSRP of the 8TB WD Red is listed at $449.99 with a three-year warranty.