Seagate’s IronWolf series is mainly designed for NAS-specific storage devices. In recent years, in the face of the explosive growth of all kinds of information, the required data storage space has also become larger and larger. Therefore, whether it is on a traditional hard drive or a solid-state drive, the IronWolf series The technology of the series is also becoming more and more innovative. In addition to the largest single hard drive with a capacity of 18TB, the maximum capacity of a solid-state drive has also reached 4TB. Looking back at the cold backup hard drives in the past few years, one plus plus two is not as big as the capacity of two 18TB. I lament the progress of technology.
The product we are going to unbox today is the 18TB HDD of the IronWolf Pro series. As for the traditional hard drive, Seagate’s current largest capacity of 18TB was launched this year, and the IronWolf Pro can also be used on NAS. 18TB, everyone should know that NAS is used continuously for a long time, so the hard disk will be in a state of almost all reading and writing, whether it is reading and writing during use, or some dynamic adjustments, backups, etc. when not in use, so the HDD used in NAS must be designed to be more indestructible, coupled with a larger capacity design, so the appearance of IronWolf Pro 18TB is like a beacon, leading users in need to have better choices.
Seagate IronWolf Pro NAS 18TB HDD unboxing
IronWolf Pro 18TB has a big IronWolf logo on its appearance:
Due to the ultra-large capacity, helium filling is used, so you can see that there is a very tight packaging mechanism on the periphery.
Therefore, a larger storage capacity can be achieved under the same thickness. As you can see in the figure below, it is 2TB vs. 18TB.
Seagate IronWolf Pro NAS 18TB HDD Performance Test
Let’s test the IronWolf Pro 18TB first. The maximum capacity of the IronWolf Pro series is the 18TB tested today. As the capacity increases, the read and write speeds become faster and faster. The maximum sustained transfer speed officially given by the 18TB is 260MB/s, and the IronWolf The MTBF of the entire Pro series is 1,200,000 hours. To put it bluntly, only 7 failures will occur in every 1,000 devices within a year. The reliability is very high in the industry:
First of all, you can see that the actual usable capacity is 16.3TB. (different conversion formats)
What is the concept of 18TB? It can be calculated from the hard disk capacity currently used in my computer. Currently, I use a 1TB PCIe SSD as a system disk, a 256GB PCIe SSD as a temporary storage area, a 1TB SSHD + two 6TB HDDs as a backup area, and a 500GB SATA SSD as a general workspace. The combined capacity of these is not as good as an 18TB…
All IronWolf Pro series are 7200 rpm hard drives and can be driven directly through external hard drive boxes. They are very easy to use even if they are not used as NAS HDDs.
Next, let’s actually test the transmission speed. First, we use CrystalDiskMark for the read and write test. The actual read and write speeds tested are 262.99 MB/s and 254.36 MB/s respectively. The read and write speed is nearly half of that of SATA SSD, and it is very comfortable to use.
Then use ATTO Disk Benchmark for reading and writing tests. The maximum reading and writing speeds are 263.8 MB/s and 257 MB/s respectively, which is equally amazing as the actual measured data of CrystalDiskMark.
The actual performance of transferring files is also very good. When files are moved from the desktop, the writing speed is 221 MB/s.
When moving files from the hard drive to the desktop, the read speed is 244 MB/s.
Original factory support
In addition to high-level hardware performance, the entire Seagate IronWolf series can also activate the exclusive IronWolf Health Management (IHM) protection mechanism on compatible NAS to monitor the NAS directly through charts. Daily data traffic, grasp various conditions, the project includes: data transfer, performance, readability, writability, overall reliability and other related hard disk health status parameters (such as temperature, impact, vibration, connection stability and signal integrity) and provides preventive measures for data protection, making it more secure in use.
In addition, IronWolf Pro 18TB comes with a 3-year Seagate Rescue data rescue service. You must register on the official website before use. During the warranty period of the rescue plan, when the hard drive is damaged and the data cannot be read, Seagate provides free rescue services and does its best to rescue the data in the hard drive.Customer satisfaction reaches 95%。
Summarize
I believe that after actual testing, it can be found that IronWolf has better usability and stability whether it is a traditional hard drive or a solid-state drive. It has greatly increased the safety of NAS for long-term use. Moreover, in the modern era of information explosion, when the capacity of casually shooting a short video is several GB, larger storage space is necessary. Think about it. In the past, a 6TB NAS hard drive was only 30TB in a 5bay NAS, but now an 18TB one is placed in a 5bay. The NAS has an ultra-large capacity of 90TB, not to mention that the IronWolf Pro series supports up to 24 pcs in one NAS at the same time. It is really comfortable to use. In addition, the entire IronWolf Pro series comes with a five-year warranty, so you can use it with more confidence.
But in the end, there is still a small concept. Many users may think that the IronWolf Pro 18TB HDD is extremely expensive. But if we put it another way, one 18TB is equal to 18 1TB. We assume that a 1TB ordinary hard drive costs $1,200. Then to achieve the same capacity of 18TB, you must spend $21,600, not to mention the IronWolf Pro is still a NAS hard drive. It may be more expensive to achieve the same capacity and the same functions. Therefore, how much should an 18TB hard drive cost? I believe that all players can calculate in their own minds. If one can be worth several, coupled with faster speed and better stability, I believe it is a very good choice. I recommend it to everyone.
Source: KOCPC Chinese