Barracuda vs iron wolf

[Indian pc builder]

What’s the difference between Seagate barracuda and ironwolf pro hard drives other than the speed? 
 

I need 2 to hard drives for a nas setup and the barracudas are half the price if the ironwolfs. Other than a slower speed, am I losing anything as per reliability or longevity?

[Electronics Wizardy]

Barracuda drives are mostly SMR now, and you typically don't want SMR drives in a NAS or raid configs. SMR can cause extremly slow speeds and long rebuild times. Should last a similar amount of time though.

 

 

[Indian pc builder]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Barracuda drives are mostly SMR now, and you typically don't want SMR drives in a NAS or raid configs. SMR can cause extremly slow speeds and long rebuild times. Should last a similar amount of time though.

 

 

Smr?

[da na]

2 minutes ago, Indian pc builder said:

Smr?

Shingled magnetic Recording. Data tracks are layered on top of one another, increasing the time needed to read each sector.

 

Besides that, every single Seagate drive is the same. All in virutally the same chassis, just a different sticker and CMR vs SMR.

[will0hlep]

7 minutes ago, Indian pc builder said:

Smr?

Shingled magnetic recording.

 

It means the tracks/cells on the drive overlap slightly. Doing this means you can fit more data on the drive (per platter) but it is far slower because when you overwriting a cell on a SMR drive you also have to rewrite the cells that it overlaps with (this is slightly over simplified but mostly correct).

see this:

 

1TB and 500GB Barracuda drives are CMR (the type you usually want) but all Barracuda drives at 2TB and above are SMR and should be avoided.

[Indian pc builder]

14 minutes ago, will0hlep said:

Shingled magnetic recording.

 

It means the tracks/cells on the drive overlap slightly. Doing this means you can fit more data on the drive (per platter) but it is far slower because when you overwriting a cell on a SMR drive you also have to rewrite the cells that it overlaps with (this is slightly over simplified but mostly correct).

see this:

 

1TB and 500GB Barracuda drives are CMR (the type you usually want) but all Barracuda drives at 2TB and above are SMR and should be avoided.

So it’s like qlc nand and tlc for ssds?( obviously it’s not the same thing but the underlying idea is the same?)

 

also if I don’t really care about speed and the barracudas are less than half the price, would it be worth it?( how bad is the speed issue?)

 

also does seagate warranty cover data recovery ? Like I know u can get optional data recovery for wd drives but, seeing how 2 of mine just does and I didnt have data recovery on them, I’ve lost trust for wd as a company 

edit: my wd data ssd dies which is why I’ve stopped trusting them 

 

 

[will0hlep]

39 minutes ago, Indian pc builder said:

So it’s like qlc nand and tlc for ssds?( obviously it’s not the same thing but the underlying idea is the same?)

 

also if I don’t really care about speed and the barracudas are less than half the price, would it be worth it?( how bad is the speed issue?)

 

also does seagate warranty cover data recovery ? Like I know u can get optional data recovery for wd drives but, seeing how 2 of mine just does and I didnt have data recovery on them, I’ve lost trust for wd as a company 

edit: my wd data ssd dies which is why I’ve stopped trusting them

While the idea is kinda the same (more space, less speed), SMR drives should be avoided in almost all cases, especially for NAS setups, unless you absolutely know what your doing.

 

The video I posted previously explains why you shouldn't use them in NASs and quite how bad the speed issue is. It is worth a watch.

[m9x3mos]

1 hour ago, will0hlep said:

While the idea is kinda the same (more space, less speed), SMR drives should be avoided in almost all cases, especially for NAS setups, unless you absolutely know what your doing.

 

The video I posted previously explains why you shouldn't use them in NASs and quite how bad the speed issue is. It is worth a watch.

As this is my personal experience, I wouldn't use smr drives in a nas.

I tested it on a spare setup and it was slow on writes and rebuilding a failed drive was causing errors that could lead to data loss sometimes. 

Rebuild on an array of 4 1tb drives with one new drive took the system about 37 hours. 

[LIGISTX]

As others said, don’t use SMR in a NAS. The time it takes to rebuild a failed array is SO egregiously long, the likelihood of a second drive failing during the rebuild process becomes an actual issue, and at that point you lose all your data if you only have single drive redundancy. 
 

For reference, I run a 10x4tb array with 2 drive redundancy, and I personally have had a second drive fail during a rebuild…. And I am using CMR WD Reds. So this is not just “possible…. Theoretically”. It had happened to me, and I am very thankful I had dual drive redundancy to save me. And my rebuilds take ~8-10 hours, being at risk for multiple days, no thanks, SMR is a no go.