Western Digital releases massive 12TB 7200RPM WD Gold HDD with 256MB cache
As many of you know, 2.5-inch notebook mechanical hard drives are largely obsolete. The larger 3.5-inch desktop variants have a lot of life left in them, however, as they offer much more capacity compared to a solid state drive. If you want the most storage from a single SATA drive, a desktop HDD is where it's at -- for now.
Today, Western Digital unveils a monstrous desktop HDD as a part of its Enterprise-class "WD Gold" line. This new 12TB SATA model (WD121KRYZ) has a large 256MB cache, 7200RPM disk speed, and an impressive five-year limited warranty. Of course, such a massive capacity comes with a rather high price tag.
"The WD Gold hard drives are designed to store users' most precious data. Designed for heavy-workload, high-vibration server environments, the new drives have a reliability rating (2.5 million hours MTBF) that is among the highest in WD's hard drive portfolio. The drives utilize Western Digital's 4th generation HelioSeal technology, which seals helium in the drive to help provide exceptional capacity, reliability and power efficiency," says Western Digital.
Brendan Collins, VP Devices business unit, Western Digital says, "As data growth continues unabated, retaining more of that data and generating meaningful insight from it becomes increasingly important. Businesses that most effectively extract value from operational data are able to make smarter decisions, improve business outcomes and ultimately gain a competitive advantage."
So, how much does this beast of a hard disk drive cost? Be prepared to open your wallet wide, as it is $521.99. Since this is designed for business clients and not home consumers, the price isn't insane. In fact, if you want to use several SATA drives together, having a massive capacity in a single drive could be priceless when an organization's needs are considered. With that said, there is nothing stopping an enthusiast from purchasing this drive for home use -- if they can afford it, that is.