What Drive Should I Get? A Guide to the Mechanical HD Market

[Healadin]

Hello,

I am building my NAS and I want to go for Seagate Ironwolf 6TBs. I found two different versions in my area:

ST6000VN0033

ST6000VN0041

I wonder which one is "better".

x33 - has 256 MB cache and 5 platters + 10 heads

x41 - has 128 MB cache and 6 platters + 12 heads

The question is if I should just decide depending on cache size or number of platters also plays an important role?

 

EDIT: x41 is also a bit more expensive (around 20 €)

Edited November 15, 2019 by Healadin
adding more info

[seagate_surfer]

On 11/15/2019 at 2:22 AM, Healadin said:

Hello,

I am building my NAS and I want to go for Seagate Ironwolf 6TBs. I found two different versions in my area:

ST6000VN0033

ST6000VN0041

I wonder which one is "better".

x33 - has 256 MB cache and 5 platters + 10 heads

x41 - has 128 MB cache and 6 platters + 12 heads

The question is if I should just decide depending on cache size or number of platters also plays an important role?

 

EDIT: x41 is also a bit more expensive (around 20 €)

Cache shouldn't make you buy the unit if you are not working with many apps opened at the same time. The amount of platters differs because density is tending to increase in less sectors, by this you can assume that the one with less platters is a more recent version. You also can see the specs sheet of these two and you will see that the revision number was assigned on different dates: 

June 2017 for ST6000VN0041: https://www.seagate.com/files/www-content/product-content/ironwolf/en-us/docs/100807039d.pdf

 

and 

 

May 2019 for ST6000VN0033: https://www.seagate.com/www-content/product-content/ironwolf/en-us/docs/100807039k.pdf

 

Each time a product is revisited, manufacturers generally change the revision number of that product. In each revision there can be major or small changes as only the design of the label, anyway, I hope this information helps you with something.

[Mark Kaine]

On 11/22/2019 at 4:31 AM, seagate_surfer said:

Cache shouldn't make you buy the unit if you are not working with many apps opened at the same time

Hi, 

I was wondering about that. So would 

MSI Command Center 

Nvidia GFE 

Nvidia Shadowplay 

Steam 

Game 

MSI Afterburner 

HWmonitor 

 

and maybe like 2 or 3 other small apps count as many apps or is a lower cache size still ok for this use case? 

 

 

[Eekiig]

Just for Info - WD-Specific:

I've found this (of my opinion very usefull) comparision about the Western-Digital-Rainbow:

WD-Rainbow-Table (pugetsystems.com)

 

Greetings Eekiig

[Oalei]

Should i buy a 1TB HDD with 3 years warranty or 3TB HDD refurb with 1 year warranty for the same price? like how bad is a refurb drive?

[FRD]

Nice a short in-depth list of all the current hard drives on the market. Sometimes it's indeed confusing which one to pick, gladly SSHD's aren't really a thing anymore or it would be much more complicated.

[em_lab]

Hi 

 

i just came to turn my old PC into a NAS, 

i know that i must buy NAS Disk for storage like the WD RED but

for the OS and config files.. i used an standard desktop drive

 

the question is... which type of drive to i must use for the NAS OS ?

[Chiyawa]

@Blade of Grass

 

I've seen Toshiba HDD pops out in the market. Wonder will you update your list accordingly.

[Adam1394]

Are ST4000NM0053 good for NAS/File Server (games/movies/YT clips for my channel)?

I plan to run 8 of them in ZFS-2 (I know 6 would be better).

[Biggy styles]

Get a crucial mx500 ssd, I cant recomend these enough and a green wd, i got a 3 tb version from many years ago that still functions fine, cost me £64 if i remember rightly. Brought a 4tb external wd black few months from currys on sale £84 quid, price now 108 i believe, for an external drive, this thing rules man but still a lil bit slower than my wd 3 tb drive

[Bateman1950x]

I'm planning to buy "Seagate Exos X14 12TB Enterprise 3.5" Internal SATA HDD ST12000NM0008 2019" , please advise if there're any better options at that same price range?

 

Thanks

[Bleda412]

Seagate seems to be phasing out the Exos. Stock seems to be low, and they aren't promoting it on Amazon or their website. Would the Iron Wolf be the next go-to option within the Seagate brand?

[testcy]

I have been using Toshiba DT01 Series for offline backup the last few years with no problems, but are there other 7200rpm 3.5" HDDs of CRM recording type worth considering?

[Choocher]

So I just wanted to share my Seagate buying experience FWIW. I ordered two 16tb ironwolf pros from Amazon. One arrived DOA so I reached out to Seagate for an RMA. I don't live in a country where Seagate has a local office and I can't ship the defective drive locally. Now I have 4hrs to respond to their email or accept their shipment policy where I carry all of the future shipping and customs costs. There is no guarantee that the replacement drive will even work and I will be liable for it's shipping should it also fail. (which has happened before in fairness).

 

Honestly right now it feels like Seagate 5yr warranty feels like a scam because I've paid for the drive and need to continue pay in the hope that I actually get a working product eventually. 

 

Please compare WD, Seagate, Hitachi failure rates before making any purchase decision.

[RasmusDC]

after having run Exos for at while i bought 3 20TB for my vault...

 

i have always been WD fan and also like the Ironwolf, but really expensive in Denmark, and after the shingle thing in WD, i just gave up..

 

Always had a bad feeling about the Seagate, but must admit, those EXos 20 (think my olders are 16) and my Toshiba N300 has just been rock solid. and the MTBF on Exos 20 are high.. 

[ShadowTwili89]

What's the best overall for long term storage and not being powered up and being used for months or years? Failure rates and all that. 

[Blue4130]

On 8/18/2023 at 5:42 PM, ShadowTwili89 said:

What's the best overall for long term storage and not being powered up and being used for months or years? Failure rates and all that. 

LTO tape, though some say m-disk is better. I still think tape is more proven and industry standard.