Seagate Exos vs. Ironwolf

[Jisagi]

I'm planing my next home server build and I'm stuck with the HDDs right now. The usage will be inside a normal comsumer case (not a server rack) running in a RAID (not sure which one yet, either 6 or 10) and I don't plan on using more than 6 drives. The storage pool will mainly be used for large video files, some private & business projects and a small amount private photos.

 

My plan is to get 5x or 6x 6TB drives, but there are Exos (ST6000NM0115) and Ironwolf (ST6000VN0033). Both have 256MB cache, 7200rpm and more or less the same power usage. Ironwolf is geared for NAS usage, but Exos doesn't seem to be too far off as "Enterprise" drive either. The price is within spitting distance as well. The only real differences seems to be the 2 million hours MTBF of the Exos comapred to the 1 million hours of the Ironwolf drive and the longer warranty. For my kind of usage, which doesn't have too much "enterprise" in it and more "classic NAS usage", would buying the Exos variant be the better choice because of the less likeness of a failure and the longer warranty, or does it really matter at all?

[Wolly9102]

Just now, Jisagi said:

I'm planing my next home server build and I'm stuck with the HDDs right now. The usage will be inside a normal comsumer case (not a server rack) running in a RAID (not sure which one yet, either 6 or 10) and I don't plan on using more than 6 drives. The storage pool will mainly be used for large video files, some private & business projects and a small amount private photos.

 

My plan is to get 5x or 6x 6TB drives, but there are Exos (ST6000NM0115) and Ironwolf (ST6000VN0033). Both have 256MB cache, 7200rpm and more or less the same power usage. Ironwolf is geared for NAS usage, but Exos doesn't seem to be too far off as "Enterprise" drive either. The price is within spitting distance as well. The only real difference seems to be the 2 million hours MTBF of the Exos comapred to the 1 million hours of the Ironwolf drive. For my kind of usage, which doesn't have too much "enterprise" in it and more "classic NAS usage", would buying the Ironwolf variant be the better choice because of the less likeness of a failure, or does it really matter at all?

I think @seagate_surfer can anwser this the best  

[seagate_surfer]

On 9/29/2019 at 9:07 AM, Jisagi said:

I'm planing my next home server build and I'm stuck with the HDDs right now. The usage will be inside a normal comsumer case (not a server rack) running in a RAID (not sure which one yet, either 6 or 10) and I don't plan on using more than 6 drives. The storage pool will mainly be used for large video files, some private & business projects and a small amount private photos.

 

My plan is to get 5x or 6x 6TB drives, but there are Exos (ST6000NM0115) and Ironwolf (ST6000VN0033). Both have 256MB cache, 7200rpm and more or less the same power usage. Ironwolf is geared for NAS usage, but Exos doesn't seem to be too far off as "Enterprise" drive either. The price is within spitting distance as well. The only real differences seems to be the 2 million hours MTBF of the Exos comapred to the 1 million hours of the Ironwolf drive and the longer warranty. For my kind of usage, which doesn't have too much "enterprise" in it and more "classic NAS usage", would buying the Exos variant be the better choice because of the less likeness of a failure and the longer warranty, or does it really matter at all?

For home use there may not be much difference between one and the other but the Exos unit is better because it is focused on business use, the IronWolf Pro unit has a performance very similar to the enterprise level but it is cheaper and that is why many companies use the Pro version of the Seagate IronWolf (They ussually purchase in bulks), because it is cheaper than Exos but with a very similar endurance, so they can save some bucks per unit and thus making it more profitable. In your specific case, it is not necessary to have the Exos but if you have the money to buy it then go ahead because you will acquire some of the best there is today, however it is not necessary and it would be merely a decision of yours and your personal budget.

[Jisagi]

36 minutes ago, seagate_surfer said:

For home use there may not be much difference between one and the other but the Exos unit is better because it is focused on business use, the IronWolf Pro unit has a performance very similar to the enterprise level but it is cheaper and that is why many companies use the Pro version of the Seagate IronWolf (They ussually purchase in bulks), because it is cheaper than Exos but with a very similar endurance, so they can save some bucks per unit and thus making it more profitable. In your specific case, it is not necessary to have the Exos but if you have the money to buy it then go ahead because you will acquire some of the best there is today, however it is not necessary and it would be merely a decision of yours and your personal budget.

Thank you very much. I might actually go for the Exos drives then.

[seagate_surfer]

Sure, with pleasure! The difference between HDD Enterprise drives and desktop drives is huge. Desktop drives are spec’d to process 55 TB per year while most enterprise drives are rated to handle 10 times that amount. Over a 5-year period that’s a lot more effective storage work you can expect from an enterprise drive. This is when comparing the most basic unit like the BarraCuda, not BarraCuda Pro, but the simplest one that is not Pro against a business HDD like Exos, the Seagate Ironwolf should be somewhere between them. 

 

[Jisagi]

And thanks again for the article, it was a very good read :D. I kinda doubt that I will reach enterprise level workloads when it comes to cumulative TB, so that spec might be fulfilled with an Ironwolf (pro) drive. Additional specs/warranty/... are always nice though, as long as one can afford them.

 

I should probably also (kinda) correct my initial question for everyone else reading this in the future. The Exos model I listed is not the latest "Exos 7E8" model and therefore cheaper. The latest one is in fact more expensive than an ironwolf drive by about 30%, at least here in Germany. This difference seems to decrease for the larger drives though. I personally still keep the Exos drives on my "possible buy" list for now, be it the last gen model or not.

[seagate_surfer]

I see what you are saying, I double checked and the Exos revision number ST6000NM0115 is dated April 2018, the newer revision numbers are dated September 2019 but still continues to be an erterprise HDD and all its features involved.

[Kilrah]

Nice info. 

I've just ordered 6 16TB Exos earlier today  In my location they are cheaper than both the IronWolf and IronWolf Pro.

[Jisagi]

8 minutes ago, seagate_surfer said:

I see what you are saying, I double checked and the Exos revision number ST6000NM0115 is dated April 2018, the newer revision numbers are dated September 2019 but still continues to be an erterprise HDD and all its features involved.

Oh ok, I was looking at the datasheet for the ST6000NM0115 model which was dated to 2016, but if there are newer revisions with the same model number which are still produced, that's fine by me. That means I don't necessarily have to buy the newer model ST6000NM021A to get "the best version there is" in the Exos E lineup.

 

1 minute ago, Kilrah said:

Nice info. 

I've just ordered 6 Exos earlier today, but for me the choice was easy since they're the only ones with 16TB capacity

I'd love to see some performance numbers if you can provide them when they arrive. That would be really nice to see, especially on the currently largest capacity (mechanical) drive.

[Kilrah]

Sure. BTW I edited my post, 16TB is also available in the IronWolfs but they're both more expensive here. Sorry for the mistake.

 

My setup is running 2 drives in RAID0, plus 2 backup sets in external hardware RAID boxes.

[seagate_surfer]

6 minutes ago, Jisagi said:

Oh ok, I was looking at the datasheet for the ST6000NM0115 model which was dated to 2016, but if there are newer revisions with the same model number which are still produced, that's fine by me. That means I don't necessarily have to buy the newer model ST6000NM021A to get "the best version there is" in the Exos E lineup.

 

I'd love to see some performance numbers if you can provide them when they arrive. That would be really nice to see, especially on the currently largest capacity (mechanical) drive.

Looked them up here: https://www.seagate.com/support/internal-hard-drives/enterprise-hard-drives/exos-7E/#specs do CTRL+F and enter ST6000NM0115, open the user manual, not the data sheet, open the user manual and there you will see that this model was reviewed last year. I checked the other 6TB and the most recent one was just made about a month ago as I said.

[Jisagi]

7 minutes ago, seagate_surfer said:

Looked them up here: https://www.seagate.com/support/internal-hard-drives/enterprise-hard-drives/exos-7E/#specs do CTRL+F and enter ST6000NM0115, open the user manual, not the data sheet, open the user manual and there you will see that this model was reviewed last year. I checked the other 6TB and the most recent one was just made about a month ago as I said.

Good to know, directly bookmarked the page

[seagate_surfer]

22 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

Nice info. 

I've just ordered 6 16TB Exos earlier today  In my location they are cheaper than both the IronWolf and IronWolf Pro.

 

14 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

Sure. BTW I edited my post, 16TB is also available in the IronWolfs but they're both more expensive here. Sorry for the mistake.

 

My setup is running 2 drives in RAID0, plus 2 backup sets in external hardware RAID boxes.

How cool is that! in special when you can get them on sale! 

[Kilrah]

Now the wait... distributor quotes availability on Oct 10th :(

[seagate_surfer]

16 hours ago, Kilrah said:

Now the wait... distributor quotes availability on Oct 10th :(

Oh no!  Well, for the price you are getting those it's tottaly worth it, I mean, not everyone can find enterprise drives cheaper than IronWolf and IronWolf Pro. 

[kingknightrider]

On 10/3/2019 at 9:25 AM, seagate_surfer said:

Oh no!  Well, for the price you are getting those it's tottaly worth it, I mean, not everyone can find enterprise drives cheaper than IronWolf and IronWolf Pro. 

Sorry to intrude but in relation to the Exo's...

 

Anyway for other builds WD:Blue, Black, Purple and Red seem to work as intended... HOWEVER for enterprise systems -It seems that the Ultrastar line and the gold line for that matter are prone to hard drive failures before the mfr -maybe it just one drive model across manufactures. Still those others are good but if durability is needed the Exos seem to be the clear choice.

 

BTW You spoke of Iron wolf line if NAS but since mine is performance and durability would this one be better option?

https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Exos-Internal-Drive-Enterprise/dp/B07D9C618D/

 

And for that matter isn't this the same drive -though most likely in a renewed/refurbished state:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01FRC1GRQ/

?

[seagate_surfer]

On 10/4/2019 at 1:17 PM, kingknightrider said:

Sorry to intrude but in relation to the Exo's...

 

Anyway for other builds WD:Blue, Black, Purple and Red seem to work as intended... HOWEVER for enterprise systems -It seems that the Ultrastar line and the gold line for that matter are prone to hard drive failures before the mfr -maybe it just one drive model across manufactures. Still those others are good but if durability is needed the Exos seem to be the clear choice.

 

BTW You spoke of Iron wolf line if NAS but since mine is performance and durability would this one be better option?

https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Exos-Internal-Drive-Enterprise/dp/B07D9C618D/

 

And for that matter isn't this the same drive -though most likely in a renewed/refurbished state:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01FRC1GRQ/

?

The Exos is an easy decision, but it all depends on everyone's personal budget, the difference of these 2 units depends on the model number, of course, the newer the unit, the more expensive it will be. You can find all enterprise models here: https://www.seagate.com/enterprise-storage/

And you can use teh search engine in the website to enter the model you are interested on and check its manufactured review date.

[Kilrah]

Still don't have the Exos, but got my 2nd 5TB 2.5" that's going to be RAID0'd with the other I already had in my updated SFF build.

 

 

With that all my HDD storage will be Seagate after 10 years of WD, so I sincerely hope the well-known "reputation" is a thing of the past and I'll never need to use that 5-year warranty

[kingknightrider]

1 hour ago, Kilrah said:

Still don't have the Exos, but got my 2nd 5TB 2.5" that's going to be RAID0'd with the other I already had in my updated SFF build.

 

 

With that all my HDD storage will be Seagate after 10 years of WD, so I sincerely hope the well-known "reputation" is a thing of the past and I'll never need to use that 5-year warranty

https://www.seagate.com/www-content/product-content/barracuda-fam/barracuda-new/files/barracuda-2-5-ds1907-1-1609us.pdf

According to this seagate pdf -those two hard drives only have a two year warranty.

Model number:
ST5000LM000

 

For Reference:

2 Year Warranty:

Seagate BarraCuda and WD Blue.

 

3 Year Warranty:

Seagate SkyHawk, Seagate IronWolf, WD Red and WD Purple.

 

5 Year Warranty

Seagate IronWolf Pro, Seagate FireCuda, Seagate Exos, WD Red Pro, WD Black and WD Gold (Gold line IMO is hazardous to computer health so advise caution there).

 

[Kilrah]

Well I was talking of the Exos, these 2 actually don't have any warranty since I snagged them from externals because of stupid pricing. Don't care much for $120, but at $500 it's another story.

[LunaP0n3]

Ironwolf drives have Ironwolf Health if you pair them with a Synology NAS.

Basically a second layer of health checking after SMART.

[seagate_surfer]

5 hours ago, LunaP0n3 said:

Ironwolf drives have Ironwolf Health if you pair them with a Synology NAS.

Basically a second layer of health checking after SMART.

Not only Synology, Asustor, QNAP, QSAN, Terra Master Thecus as well, more information here: https://www.seagate.com/internal-hard-drives/hdd/ironwolf/health/

 

[seagate_surfer]

On 10/8/2019 at 4:15 AM, Kilrah said:

Still don't have the Exos, but got my 2nd 5TB 2.5" that's going to be RAID0'd with the other I already had in my updated SFF build.

 

 

With that all my HDD storage will be Seagate after 10 years of WD, so I sincerely hope the well-known "reputation" is a thing of the past and I'll never need to use that 5-year warranty

I'm really happy for you and yes! Hopefully you never have to use any warranty or recovery services, but the best way to anticipate having to use some recovery service is to have a backup of your information, what you said is very true, the failure rate only continues decreasing (while the density of each HDD continues to increase) but nothing, absolutely nothing is perfect and although the failure rate is very small, any HDD could fail and for that reason is that, if the most important thing is the information you keep in those HDDs, then such information should have a backup.

[seagate_surfer]

On 10/8/2019 at 4:59 AM, Kilrah said:

Well I was talking of the Exos, these 2 actually don't have any warranty since I snagged them from externals because of stupid pricing. Don't care much for $120, but at $500 it's another story.

We can do shucking on external units and use them as if they were devices manufactured for internal purposes in mind, but I still wouldn't trust that much as I do on devices originally manufactured with that purpose in mind.

[Kilrah]

Same part number, so there should not be any difference in purpose.

 

Obviously not recommending people do that, but I'm personally happy with the risk/lack of warranty given the unreasonable difference - so much that it nearly comes out as an insult.

Gotta thank Seagate for not doing like WD - that's why you got my money instead of them, even if you got a bit less of it on those 2 I did then purchase 6 Exos full price...