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Western Digital · NAS Pro drive · WD260KFGX

WD Red Pro 26TB

A NAS drive for bigger boxes. WD doesn't cap the bay count, and it's rated for 550 TB of reads and writes a year.

Capacity
26 TB
Recording
CMR
Speed
7,200 rpm
Warranty
5 years
Workload
550 TB/yr
Rated for
Any bay count
Failure rate
No failure data

Recommended inRunner-up: Best hard drive for a 4-bay NAS

Good for

  • Any size of NAS
  • Busy arrays (550 TB a year)
  • RAID, SHR and ZFS rebuilds
  • 5 years' warranty

Not for

  • A desk or bedroom (7,200 rpm is the louder class)

Updated 27 Oct 2026 · Method 2.0

Is the WD Red Pro 26 TB right for you?

This is the one to look at once you're past eight bays or the array's busy all day, because WD rates it for 550 TB a year and doesn't care how big the box is. WD backs it for five years, which is a long time in drive terms. Recording is CMR, the right kind for RAID and ZFS.

Watch out for

It's a 7,200 rpm drive and you'll hear it working.

Backblaze doesn't run enough of these for a failure rate we'd publish. On paper it makes 25 dB at idle and 32 dB seeking. WD lists 3.6 W at idle and 6 W working, which comes to 32 kWh a year for a drive that idles around the clock. Four of them in SHR or RAID 5 give 78 TB usable, or 70.9 TB once Windows has done its binary maths on it.

Specifications

Each value links to the Western Digital page or datasheet it came from.

WD Red Pro 26TB specifications
Drive type NAS source for Drive type (documents.westerndigital.com, opens in new tab)
Capacity 26 TB source for Capacity (documents.westerndigital.com, opens in new tab)
Spindle speed 7,200 rpm source for Spindle speed (documents.westerndigital.com, opens in new tab)
Recording technology CMR source for Recording technology (documents.westerndigital.com, opens in new tab)
Cache 512 MB source for Cache (documents.westerndigital.com, opens in new tab)
Interface SATA 6Gb/s source for Interface (documents.westerndigital.com, opens in new tab)
Form factor 3.5in source for Form factor (documents.westerndigital.com, opens in new tab)
Max sustained transfer 287 MB/s source for Max sustained transfer (documents.westerndigital.com, opens in new tab)
Workload rating 550 TB/yr source for Workload rating (documents.westerndigital.com, opens in new tab)
MTBF / MTTF 2,500,000 hours source for MTBF / MTTF (documents.westerndigital.com, opens in new tab)
Rated for any number of NAS bays Yes source for Rated for any number of NAS bays (documents.westerndigital.com, opens in new tab)
Warranty 5 years source for Warranty (documents.westerndigital.com, opens in new tab)
Power at idle 3.6 W source for Power at idle (documents.westerndigital.com, opens in new tab)
Power in use 6 W source for Power in use (documents.westerndigital.com, opens in new tab)
Noise at idle 25 dB source for Noise at idle (documents.westerndigital.com, opens in new tab)
Noise when seeking 32 dB source for Noise when seeking (documents.westerndigital.com, opens in new tab)

Sources: documents.westerndigital.com