Reviews of Best Western Digital 8 Tb 7200 Rpm Internal Hard Drives
In our series of Hard disk guides, here'southward the latest update to our list of recommended HDDs. All numbers in the text are updated to reverberate pricing at the fourth dimension of writing.
Best Consumer Internal Hard Drives: November 2021
Data storage requirements have kept increasing over the last several years. While SSDs have taken over the role of the primary drive in most computing systems, difficult drives proceed to be the storage media of choice in areas dealing with big amount of relatively common cold data. Hard drives are also suitable for workloads that are largely sequential and not performance sensitive. The $/GB metric for SSDs (particularly with QLC in the picture) is showing a downward trend, but information technology is still not low enough to match HDDs in that market place segment.
In terms of recent product introductions, we accept retail availability of Western Digital'south OptiNAND-equipped 20TB drives. Toshiba'south 18TB drives using FC-MAMR, likewise equally Seagate's Exos 20TB and IronWolf Pro 20TB are also scheduled to brand a retail appearance soon. With the HDD supply chain seeing some improvements, prices have largely stabilized. Some high-chapters models such equally the Seagate IronWolf Pro line are currently running xv-20% lower than launch MSRPs.
Synology has introduced 8, 12, and 16TB enterprise hard drives (rebranded Toshiba Enterprise HDDs with custom firmware), but they are meant specifically for Synology NAS units (no warranties if used in other systems) and are not part of this buyer's guide. Toshiba's MG09 18TB HDDs based on FC-MAMR are yet to get retail availability, and are also not part of this buyer's guide
2021 Difficult Drives from Western Digital and Toshiba
From a gaming perspective, install sizes of hundreds of GBs are not uncommon for mod games. Long-term backup storage and loftier-capacity NAS units for consumer utilise are also ideal apply-cases for difficult drives. The claiming in picking any hard drive, of course, is balancing workload needs with total bulldoze costs. Most consumers in a not-business organisation settings also require low-power and depression-noise, yet, high chapters drives, which we're including equally an explicit category as well.
In the current market place, the WD Aureate is the only available 20TB option. However, for consumers needing absolute lowest cost at other capacities, the Seagate Exos series fits the bill, with unbelievably low prices compared to other 'consumer' HDDs at similar capacity points. At other capacity points, the most cost-constructive drives vary even when similar workload ratings are considered. Information technology must be noted that the Exos series drives are relatively noisy and consume much more power compared to other drives tuned for specific utilize cases - such as the Barracuda Pro and Toshiba X300 for desktop usage, or the WD Crimson SMR drives for read-heavy / sparing writes scenarios.
| November 2021 HDD Recommendations | ||
| Drive Segment | Recommendations | |
| High-Chapters Desktop | 16TB Seagate Exos Enterprise | $308 ($19.25 / TB) |
| Mid-Chapters Desktop | 10TB Toshiba N300 | $240 ($24 / TB) |
| High-Capacity NAS | 18TB Seagate Exos Enterprise | $367 ($20.39 / TB) |
| 18TB Seagate IronWolf Pro | $498 ($27.67 / TB) | |
| Price-Effective High-Capacity NAS | 16TB Seagate Exos Enterprise | $308 ($19.25 / TB) |
| Mid-Capacity NAS | 12TB Seagate IronWolf | $300 ($25 / TB) |
| 12TB WD Blood-red Plus | $300 ($25 / TB) | |
| Power-Efficient, High-Capacity | 14TB WD Red Plus | $379 ($27.07 / TB) |
There are three active vendors in the consumer difficult drive space - Seagate, Toshiba, and Western Digital. Their retail offerings currently top out at 18TB, 16TB, and 20TB respectively.
Consumers looking to purchase hard-drives demand to take a rough idea of the use-cases they are going to subject field the drives to. Based on that, a specific ready of metrics needs to be considered. We first take a expect at the different metrics that matter, and how various hard drives stack up against each other. Since many difficult drive families from different vendors can satisfy the requirements, information technology may all come downwardly to the pricing. We volition present a pricing matrix for diverse difficult drive families against the available capacities.
For our guide, nosotros're narrowing down the vast field of hard drives to the post-obit models/families. In detail, we are excluding surveillance-focused drives such as the WD Majestic or Seagate SkyHawk, since these drives are based on the same technology, just ofttimes carry a cost premium. Meanwhile, we're also making sure to include some of the enterprise / datacenter SATA drives that are available for purchase from e-tailers, as these sometimes offer some slap-up deals in terms of capacity-per-dollar. We accept stopped considering the SMR-based WD Red in the guide - with capacities topping out at 6TB and being ill-suited for most NAS use-cases, it is a bulldoze family that is best avoided for general usage.
- Seagate BarraCuda Pro
- Seagate IronWolf NAS
- Seagate IronWolf Pro NAS
- Seagate Exos Enterprise
- Toshiba N300
- Toshiba X300
- Western Digital Gilded
- Western Digital Red Plus
- Western Digital Carmine Pro
A few notes are in order - the WD Ultrastar DC lineup which used to be in our earlier guides is not widely available in the Due north American retail market. We have replaced it with the WD Gold series. Toshiba'due south MG08 series includes a 9-platter 16TB CMR model. All the same, it is again enterprise-focused, and the retail market has to make do with the N300 and X300 drives for NAS and desktop systems. That said, the specifications are very like, as nosotros noted in the launch article.
Metrics that Matter
Ane of the easiest ways to narrow down the search for a suitable hard drive is to wait at the target market of each family unit. The table beneath lists the suggested target market for each hard bulldoze family we are because today.
| Difficult Drive Families - Target Markets | |
| Drive Family | Target Markets |
| Seagate BarraCuda Pro | Desktops and All-in-Ones Home Servers Creative Professionals Workstations Entry-Level Straight-Attached-Storage (DAS) Units |
| Seagate IronWolf NAS | NAS Units upwardly to 8 bays (Home, SOHO, and Modest Business organization) |
| Seagate IronWolf Pro NAS | NAS Units up to 24 bays (Creative Pros, SOHO, and Pocket-sized to Medium Enterprises) |
| Seagate Exos Enterprise | Datacenter and Bulk Cloud Storage |
| Toshiba N300 | NAS Units up to eight trophy |
| Toshiba X300 | Professional Desktops, Abode Media or Gaming PCs |
| WD Gilt | Datacenter and Bulk Deject Storage |
| WD Ruby-red | NAS Units up to viii bays, Read-Intensive and Archival Workloads |
| WD Red Plus | NAS Units up to 8 bays |
| WD Red Pro | NAS Units upwards to 24 bays |
After filtering out models that don't utilize to your use-case (as an example, for usage in a 4-bay NAS enclosure, one could dominion out the Toshiba X300 direct abroad), we can and so have a look at how the specifications of various bulldoze families compare.
| Difficult Bulldoze Families - Metrics of Interest | |||||
| Bulldoze Family | Rated Workload (TB/yr) | Rated Load / Unload Cycles | Unrecoverable Read Errors | MTBF (Hours) | Warranty (Years) |
| Seagate BarraCuda Pro | 300 | 300K | one in 10E15 | one.0M | 5 |
| Seagate IronWolf NAS | 180 | 600K | 1 in 10E15 | 1.0M | 3 |
| Seagate IronWolf Pro NAS | 300 | 600K | i in 10E15 | 1.2M | 5 |
| Seagate Exos Enterprise | 550 | 600K | ane in 10E15 | 2.5M | 5 |
| Toshiba N300 | 180 | 300K | i in 10E14 | 1.0M | 3 |
| Toshiba X300 | N/A (72?) | 300K | 1 in 10E14 | 0.6M | 2 |
| WD Gold | 550 | 600K | one in 10E15 | 2.5M | 5 |
| WD Blood-red | 180 | 600K | 1 in 10E14 | ane.0M | 3 |
| WD Ruby Plus | 180 | 600K | i in 10E14 | one.0M | iii |
| WD Ruby Pro | 300 | 600K | 1 in 10E14 | 1.0M | 5 |
Based on these metrics, it is articulate that the enterprise drives (Seagate Exos Enterprise and WD Gold) are rated to be more reliable in the long run over a big sample set up. Yet, almost consumer use-cases do non need a 550 TB/yr workload rating. 180 - 300 TB/yr workload rating is enough reasonable for about users when the drives are going to be used as part of RAID arrays.
The BarraCuda Pro strikes a nice residual across many metrics, but information technology is rated only for 300K load / unload cycles. Information technology also doesn't take the RV sensors nowadays in the rest of the drives (other than the Toshiba X300).
In because the non-enterprise drives, nosotros note that the 'Unrecoverable Read Errors' metric is 10x worse for the WD and Toshiba drives compared to the Seagate ones. The MTTF metric for the IronWolf Pro is slightly amend than the other drives (at one.2M vs. 1M hours).
1 of the aspects not mentioned in the higher up table is that the WD Red SMR bulldoze is in the 5400 RPM course, while the other drives (including the Red Plus) are all 7200 RPM. Despite similar spindle speeds, the Scarlet Plus firmware is optimized for a low noise profile across nigh chapters points. It might non win out on benchmarks, just possesses qualities that are important for some consumer use-cases. Some other aspect to be kept in mind is that the WD Red line is now exclusively SMR-based, with the CMR drives moving to the WD Crimson Plus line. Unless the consumer is technically savvy plenty to understand the pitfalls of SMR and its applicability to the desired utilize-case, the SMR-based WD Red line is best avoided.
Pricing Matrix and Concluding Remarks
The matrix beneath shows the current pricing for each bachelor chapters bespeak in all the considered hard drive families.
| HDD Pricing Matrix (as of Nov 22, 2021) Cheapest 'Available' Drives for NAS in Bold, AT-recommended Drives In Green | |||||||
| Bulldoze Family | 20TB | 18TB | 16TB | 14TB | 12TB | 10TB | 8TB |
| Seagate BarraCuda Pro | - | - | - | $669 | $475 | $360 | |
| Seagate IronWolf NAS | - | - | $500 (Amazon) $500 (Newegg) | $385 (Amazon) | $300 (Newegg) | $270 (Newegg) | $220 |
| Seagate IronWolf Pro NAS | - | $500 (Amazon) | $430 | $400 | $410 (Amazon) $410 (Newegg) | $340 (Newegg) | $280 (Newegg) |
| Seagate Exos Enterprise | - | $370 | $310 | $289 | $295 | $286 | $289 |
| Toshiba N300 | - | - | $476 | $434 | $295 | $240 | $198 |
| Toshiba X300 | - | - | $497 | $467 | $352 | $233 | $159 (Newegg) |
| WD Gold | $680 (WD) | $486 (Newegg) $486 (Amazon) | $420 (Amazon) $420 (Newegg) | $385 (Amazon) | $315 (Newegg) | $294 | $239 (Amazon) $225 (Newegg) |
| WD Red Plus | - | - | - | $379 | $300 (Newegg) | $260 | $210 |
| WD Reddish Pro | - | $530 | $464 | $423 | | $300 | $270 |
The desktop storage market is a straight shoot-out between the Seagate BarraCuda Pro and the Toshiba X300. Seagate opted to stop releasing BarraCuda Pro drives above the 14TB capacity betoken, but Toshiba has a 16TB X300 available for buy. The Toshiba X300 is consistently priced lower than the Seagate BarraCuda Pro. However, the college capacity versions of the Toshiba X300 use ix platters, and swallow more power compared to the corresponding BarraCuda Pro. The Seagate pricing also includes data recovery service during the warranty period. For the actress cost at certain capacity points, nosotros get a much higher workload rating, better reliability, and three actress years of warranty. And so, this is a instance where the benefits could outweigh the price. That said, the Seagate Exos Enterprise at the 16TB capacity bespeak presents the lowest $/TB metric, and wins our recommendation for this market segment despite the high power usage and noise gene. If a silent drive with relatively depression power consumption is needed, the low cost of the X300 series could be an bonny alternative.
Prior to commenting on the other possible use-cases, 1 thing is articulate from the above pricing matrix - if you absolutely require 20TB per disk, the WD Gold is your only option for purchase in the retail marketplace currently. The Chia Coin craze seems to take tapered off, with the availability and pricing of the 18TB models has improved considerably.
On the SOHO / SMB NAS front, the Seagate Exos series and WD Gold, despite their enterprise background, continue to brand a practiced instance across multiple capacity points. The merely places where the WD Cerise series (Pro and Plus) could border out as a ameliorate choice are scenarios where the power consumption and noise need to be kept low. After poring over the datasheets, we accept come to realize that the idle power consumption delta for the NAS-focused drives against the enterprise drives (Exos and Gold) is quite significant - sub-3W compared to 5W+. The acoustics across multiple capacity points are too much ameliorate. We have updated our recommendations accordingly.
The IronWolf NAS models deliver slightly meliorate performance compared to the WD Red / WD Red Plus, just, have correspondingly higher ability consumption numbers. On the SMB / SME NAS front end, the WD Red Pro has started reaching improve price points compared to previous quarters, managing to undercut the IronWolf Pro beyond almost all capacities. Nevertheless, a plus bespeak for the IronWolf Pro is the inclusion of the Data Rescue Service for a iii-yr period in addition to the usual warranty.
It must also be kept in mind that the Segate Exos Enterprise and WD Gilded are enterprise drives meant to be used in server rooms where noise and power consumption (to a large extent) are not as important every bit performance. Equally per the Exos 16TB and 18TB Exos Enterprise product manuals, the acoustics specifications are around 28-30 dB at idle, and 32-34 dB for operation seeks. Power consumption ranges from i.31W at standby to 9.45W for high queue-depth random writes, with idling average being around v.26W. The numbers for WD Gold are very similar. On the other paw, a drive like WD Red Pro has idle acoustics effectually xx dB for the high-chapters models, though performance seeks are around 36 dB. Unless ane is buying for a datacenter storage array, it is fair to wait that the drives are going to exist idle for more time than doing performance seeks in SMB or SOHO NAS units. While WD doesn't suspension down ability consumption by access trace type, the specifications bespeak power numbers betwixt 0.6W and half-dozen.2W - considerably lower than the Exos / Aureate. Price can be a key factor (which is the reason for shifting a number of our recommendations to the Exos series), but information hoarders with multi-bay NAS units or those in a SOHO setting may prefer thte NAS to be not as noisy or consume more power than needed.
Based on the above assay, the recommendations for the NAS drives are clear - for the absolute highest capacity drive currently in the market (if you lot have to compulsorily get 1) - WD Gold. The IronWolf Pro and WD Red Pro are splendid alternativese when functioning is not as important as overall power consumption and low racket profile, and the WD Ruddy Plus otherwise (based on current pricing). This is assuming that the user has adopted the 3-2-1 backup dominion and doesn't foresee the need for a data recovery service (DRS). The IronWolf Pro NAS and the BarraCuda Pro both bundle the DRS. This needs to be taken into business relationship while considering the pricing difference against other drives in the same capacity class.
Finally, a notation on shucking – buying a relatively inexpensive external difficult disk (such equally the 14TB Western Digital Elements with a re-labeled / firmware-modified WD / HGST Ultrastar HC530 DC for $260), removing the internal drive, and using it in a NAS or every bit an internal desktop drive in the place of a more costly bulldoze ($412). While this is easy plenty to do, the user experience might not be optimal - obtaining warranty services is pretty much ruled out, the default TLER settings might demand amending (which is not always possible with commercial off-the-shelf NAS units) and so on. Nosotros believe this is not worth the trouble for well-nigh readers unless the money spent is to exist treated as sunk toll, and the drive is going to be used in non-critical scenarios.
Source: https://www.anandtech.com/show/12075/best-consumer-hdds
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