Nas = desktop drives?

[pomkon]

a 2 year old discussion

https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/1115916-nas-or-enterprise-drives-for-nas-device?page=2

 

Summary- desktop drives are no different to Nas drives. Tler existed in desktop drives until the introduction of NAS drives. Desktop drives were downgraded with TLER locked for NAS drives to be a different product. Apart from that, only the firmware, price & warranty is different.

However there is no mentioning of which brands. They mentioned the uses of HGST brand being cliche, inserting the term everywhere. Side note, do consumers buy hgst hdd? they are like the most expensive ones.

 

Was it true and is it still true?

If not, why do u buy nas drives?

[Tabs]

Usually, the reason you buy NAS drives is that if you are actually using them in a NAS, they have a warranty that specifies their use for 24/7 operation. A regular hard disk and a NAS disk may be functionally identical, but if a drive fails and you RMA it, you may not get help if you've been running a normal desktop/consumer class drive 24/7.

 

Edit: Actually, you mentioned this. The warranty is the reason people buy these over regular disks. This is the same reason enterprise-grade gear costs *so much more* than consumer-grade gear, even though the functional differences rarely warrant a massive jump in price. It's the support you pay for more than anything else.

[seagate_surfer]

A lot of the reasons for people buying NAS drives are listed in your post, extra warranty, error correction controls, firmware specifications, data rescue service subscriptions, etc.

One big thing which hasn't been brought up much in this discussion yet is vibration concerns. When mechanical hard drives spin, they generate what is called RV (Rotational Vibration). Now think about a NAS box which has x number of hard drives in it, this means a lot more vibration to take into consideration. The firmware on desktop drives doesn't have a whole lot of support for detecting and adjusting for these vibrations, because that's not the use the drives were engineered for. This can cause the drive to both slow down when the vibrations jolt and move around the heads and other tiny mechanical components, and also cause the drives to wear out quicker. NAS drives have firmware that protects against those things happening. Our IronWolf line of NAS drives carries firmware for this called AgileArray. There are also physical RV sensors built into the IronWolf capacity 4TB and larger, as well as in all models of the IronWolf Pro to take it a step further.

It may not seem like a big deal when firmware in drives as different, but it can be like fine-tuning a car to hit a racetrack versus to go up a mountain, the components can be quite similar as to what actually makes up the car, but you still wouldn't use them for the same thing. Or a mountain bike versus a road bike. They're the same but yet they're not.

Here is a video on choosing the right drive for the right job for anyone interested.

Lastly, it depends as well on if you're using a dedicated NAS enclosure like Synology, QNAP, ASUSTOR, etc. Because these vendors will typically only support drives on their compatibility lists, meaning if you need support for their enclosures then having non-supported drives in them could cause you some unwanted headaches/complications.