Is it a bad idea to use an Ironwolf or other NAS drive in my desktop PC

[JamesdB]

I've see this asked before but the specific concerns I had weren't covered.

 

I've had a 4tb Barracuda in my PC since 2019 that I use for storing video footage. It's both starting to fill up and also starting to have reallocated segments so I want to replace it. Don't worry I do have backups.

 

I want to put a 6tb drive in my PC and I'm trying to decide between a Seagate Barracuda and Ironwolf.

 

My reason for going to the Ironwolf would be to have a more reliable drive, CMR, slightly faster transfer speeds and longer warranty.

 

My concerns are that

- they are designed for a NAS where they are on all the time. I shut-down my PC every night.

- do they lack the energy saving features of the barracuda like spinning down when not in use?

- are they louder?

- do they use more energy?

 

Would love to hear about these specifics. I don't mind paying a bit more for the Ironwolf if it operates the same as the Barracuda with a bit more longevity

 

PC Specs

- Asrock phantom gaming 4 x570

- Ryzen 7 3700x

- 2x16gb 3200mhz ddr4

- RTX 2070

- 1tb Intel M.2 SSD (boot)

- 1tb Intel M.2 SSD (samples and cache)

- 4tb Seagate Barracuda

[leclod]

From 4 to 6TB isn't an exciting upgrade.

I use one IronWolf 10TB since maybe 8 years.

It's pretty loud (I hear it now)(always been).

I'm not sure about that spinning down feature, on my pc, windows decides when to spin down and up.

But you're looking at slower drives, 5400rpm, mine is 7200rpm.

 

Why don't you go with the sweet Toshiba 14TB ?

[mariushm]

In general NAS drives are better built, maybe sometimes they have an extra vibration protection or something to that effect, because they're supposed to be used in small NAS boxes where you may have 4+ drives very close together, and vibrations from one could affect others. 

 

They should be left running 24/7 but they're not worse than regular drives at parking their heads and idling waiting to get data from them... but imho you shouldn't configure Windows to be aggressive at parking the heads. I have mine set up to turn off drive motors after 30 minutes of inactivity. 

 

As for power consumption ... seriously don't understand why people worry about it. An average hard drive consumes 6-8 watts an hour. 

If you leave it running 24/7, that's  8w x 24h x 31 days = 5,952 watts  = 6 kWh  ... a kWh is around 0.2-0.4 euro/dollars so that's around 1-2 euro/dollars a month. 

[Kilrah]

Nope, perfectly fine. They can spin down of course, that's the OS deciding when.

Also only have 7200rpm ones and they are indeed quite loud.

[ToboRobot]

Some are louder than normal desktop drives, but there isn't any real reason not to.  I'm doing it now without issue.

[manikyath]

1 hour ago, JamesdB said:

- they are designed for a NAS where they are on all the time. I shut-down my PC every night.

- do they lack the energy saving features of the barracuda like spinning down when not in use?

- are they louder?

- do they use more energy?

- the one cycle per day isnt going to be a huge impact on lifetime, and i doubt a NAS drive can handle less cycles than a desktop drive anyways.

- spinning down is an OS thing

- depends, i wouldnt assume NAS drives being louder in general, but a drive with more platters (and by result more arms) will just be louder by default, so a 6TB drive might make more noise than a 4TB drive.

- same as above. bigger drive => more weight to move => more power usage.. but in the scope of an entire pc, the difference a single drive makes is marginal.

[JamesdB]

8 hours ago, leclod said:

I'm not sure about that spinning down feature, on my pc, windows decides when to spin down and up

Oh okay I read somewhere that it was a firmware thing on the drive that dictates that.

8 hours ago, leclod said:

Why don't you go with the sweet Toshiba 14TB ?

I would love to go for something bigger but I don't have much budget at the moment. When I do I think I will set up a dedicated NAS

8 hours ago, mariushm said:

but imho you shouldn't configure Windows to be aggressive at parking the heads. I have mine set up to turn off drive motors after 30 minutes of inactivity

I wasn't planning to go into the settings. Do you think it's okay to leave it at system defaults?

8 hours ago, Kilrah said:

Nope, perfectly fine. They can spin down of course, that's the OS deciding when.

Thanks! that's good to know

7 hours ago, manikyath said:

same as above. bigger drive => more weight to move => more power usage.. but in the scope of an entire pc, the difference a single drive makes is marginal

Well noted. I guess it will be slightly louder but it's still a 5400rpm drive so probably not crazy

Thanks for all the help guys!

[JamesdB]

Right when I was feeling comfortable about the decision, this happens

[leclod]

11 hours ago, JamesdB said:

Right when I was feeling comfortable about the decision, this happens

230 for 6TB, that's too much. I've had NAS drives in my pc before, I got over it. Buy standard.

 

 

[mariushm]

My last hard drive purchases were a HGST NAS 4TB in retail packaging (now sold as WD, not sure what series, probably Red Pro, case looks it it) and recently a WD Red Plus 4 TB (because Red Plus is CMR) 

Quite happy with both. 

 

The 6 TB Red Plus is 176 EUR here. 8 TB is 212 EUR.

The 4 TB Red Pro is 150 EUR, the 6 TB Red Pro is 220 EUR and the 8 TB is 259 EUR.

Plain Ironwolf from Seagate is 105 EUR for 4 TB,  and the 6 TB is 165 EUR. 

 

Both Red Plus and Ironwolf have 3 years warranty here, Red Pro has 5 years warranty. 

[Kilrah]

Price likely went up because of low stock or such, unlucky. The originally displayed price is the right one.

Might want to look at the used market, chia farmers have been dumping a lot of big drives lately. Here I got a 18TB Exos for $250 a couple months ago, some are available at $230 now, and I just bought a 16TB one for $200.