Stefan Mileschin

Western Digital has introduced its new WD Red SA500 family of specialized SSDs, which are designed for caching data in NAS devices. The drives are available in four different capacities from 500 GB to 4 TB to satisfy demands of different customers. To maximize their compatibility, the SSDs feature a SATA 6 Gbps interface and come in M.2-2280 or 2.5-inch/7-mm form-factors.

Now that many desktop PCs have either been replaced by laptops or are so small that they cannot house a decent number of capacious hard drives, NAS use is gaining traction among those individuals and small businesses who need to store fairly large amounts of data. To provide such customers high performance (which is comparable to that of internal storage), many NAS these days feature a 10GbE network adapter as well as a special bay (or bays) for a caching SSD. However, the vast majority of client SSDs on the market were not designed for pure caching workloads, which are more write-heavy than typical consumer workloads. Seagate with its IronWolf 110 was the first company to launch an SSD architected for NAS caching early this year and now Western Digital follows the suit with its WD Red SA500 family, which is broader than that offered by its rival.

While it's not being disclosed by the company, Western Digital’s WD Red SA500 SSDs are based on Marvell's proven 88SS1074 controller, and paired with the company’s 3D TLC NAND memory. When it comes to capacities, the new WD Red SA500 drives are available in two form-factors: M.2-2280 models offer 500 GB, 1 TB, and 2 TB capacities, whereas 2.5-inch/7-mm SKUs can store 500 GB, 1 TB, 2 TB and 4 TB of data.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/15035...g-ssds-for-nas