Hard Drives: Western Digital passes to 6TB and Seagate tests 8TB

Long blocked to 4TB capacity 3.5-inch hard drives increases to reach 6TB and 8TB soon at major manufacturers.

After HGST (Ultrastar HE6) and Seagate (Enterprise Capacity 3.5 HDD), Western Digital launches drives 3.5-inch with a capacity of 5 and 6 TB (with trays of 1.2TB) to NAS. Parent company of HGST, WD, however, not include the helium technology to 6TB hard drives but offers Red WD60EFRX model ($ 299 excluding tax), ie with a rotation speed of 5400 t / m, cons 7200 t / m 6 to helium HGST. Western Announces a maximum throughput of 175 MB / s on 6 TB version.

To work well in a NAS environment (up to 8 hard drives in a bay network storage), these drives come with a special firmware called NASware 3.0 supposed to reduce vibration to extend the life of the units. WD uses a technology of material compensation to limit the oscillations of plates and vibration. The company offers three years warranty for these products against Red for Green only two models of the same size (5 and 6 TB). Note also that WD also sells Red Pro 5 and 6 TB (5 years warranty) for NAS bays can accommodate 8 to 16 discs.
  
Seagate, long stuck to 4TB, began to produce a small series of hard drives for 8TB tests among its main clients. To achieve this capability, the manufacturer has further increased the density plateaus fetching capacity on the edges of the disks and used the SRM technology that allows overlaying the tracks to save space.