- Description
- Specifications
Add 2TB of NAS-Rated Flash Without Giving Up a Drive Bay
In a four-bay NAS with every bay already filled by spinning disks, the M.2 slot on the mainboard is usually the only room left for flash. The WD Red SA500 2TB slots in there as a caching tier, bringing NAS-rated solid state speed to an array that has run out of physical bays. See the rest of the Western Digital lineup or compare it against other solid state drives.
Deployment Notes
This drive runs SATA over the M.2 2280 connector rather than NVMe, so it pairs with M.2 slots wired for SATA and stays on the same mature 6Gb/s interface the rest of the array already uses. At roughly a quarter of an ounce and a standard 2280 length, it mounts flat to the board and leaves airflow and bay space untouched. Western Digital designs and tests the Red line for continuous operation, so caching, RAID membership, OLTP databases, multi-user file shares, photo rendering, and 4K and 8K video editing all sit inside its rated duty cycle.
Highlights
- 2TB on Western Digital 3D NAND: NAS-rated capacity in the compact M.2 2280 footprint.
- 1300 TBW endurance: built for the sustained write cycles an always-on array generates.
- Sequential throughput reaches 560 MB/s read and 530 MB/s write across the SATA III 6Gb/s link.
- 95,000 read and 85,000 write IOPS: random performance that keeps multi-user shares and databases responsive.
- A five-year limited warranty covers the drive through years of continuous duty.
