Seagate skyhawk vs barracuda vs ironwolf

[Bigdeath54]

What is the difference between these hdd from seagate 

[jakep0802]

The difference between these drives is that the Skyhawk is made for surveillance systems that run pretty much 24/7, Barracuda is made for desktop hard drives, and Ironwolf is made for NAS's or servers. 

[Mira Yurizaki]

All this really means is the firmware is tailored so they best perform in those use cases. Otherwise if used as a normal drive, there's almost no appreciable difference.

 

But I'm sure @seagate_surfer can explain this better.

[seagate_surfer]

Hi M. Yurizaki, 

 

thank you for tagging us! 

 

Besides the differences regarding the firmware of the drive they also have physical differences that are in relation with the conditions that the drives are going to be exposed to. 

 

Let´s take for example the environment of a NAS ... drives need to be more resistant to vibrations, temperature and the 24/7 usage. So NAS drives are enhanced to work these adversities out without any problems. 

 

Then the SkyHawk drives that are made for surveillance systems, are similar to the IronWolfs but do not have to deal with vibrations, so that feature is not necessary for them. 

 

And the BarraCuda on the other hand, that are made for normal desktop usage, need to be fast for the operational system, therefore their feature is the speediness.

 

[LNakagama]

Hi @seagate_surfer, it's been a while since this question was answered.

 

I have a doubt. Is the Seagate Barracuda going to perform well in a NAS Enviroment? I have a Apple Airport Timecapsule 3Tb and it is populated with one of this Seagate Barracuda (is the one that came from apple) and in 3 years is been working flawlessly.

 

Now I have to replace a Drive from my Lenovo EMC PX6 but here in argentina is very very VERY VERY expensive the IronWolf Drives. So I am planning to do it with a Barracuda. 

 

Thanks in advance

 

Leandro

[seagate_surfer]

On 1/17/2020 at 4:25 PM, LNakagama said:

Hi @seagate_surfer, it's been a while since this question was answered.

 

I have a doubt. Is the Seagate Barracuda going to perform well in a NAS Enviroment? I have a Apple Airport Timecapsule 3Tb and it is populated with one of this Seagate Barracuda (is the one that came from apple) and in 3 years is been working flawlessly.

 

Now I have to replace a Drive from my Lenovo EMC PX6 but here in argentina is very very VERY VERY expensive the IronWolf Drives. So I am planning to do it with a Barracuda. 

 

Thanks in advance

 

Leandro

Hola amigo, saludos!

The Apple Airport Timecapsule is for Time Machine backup for Mac users, and not necessarily a NAS server. The biggest difference is in the projected use, an external backup device is just for that, to save data and not need that data again immediately every day at any time, that is, data that needs to be backed up because they cannot be obtained anywhere else and cannot be obtained easily from the internet.

I suggest that if you'd like to use the BarraCuda, then use the PRO version of it, it has 5 years of warranty and in addition to that it can work on systems that are designed to work 24/7. The normal BarraCuda can support sporadic use when it is inside an external device such as the Airport Timecapsule, that's why a lot of external HDDs have a BarraCuda inside, but that version they bring inside is the version that is manufactured not to be used under heavyworkloads/environments like a NAS drive. That is the major difference, backup (sporadic writtings) vs NAS (Heavy workloads).

With this I clarify that the version of BarraCuda for desktops is better than the version that external HDDs bring because it is designed to work on computers that fulfill an office work schedule of about 8 to 10 hours a day, 5 days a week, and that the PRO version of BarraCuda is even better because it supports 24/7 working schedules.

If the budget is not enough for IronWolf then use the BarraCuda PRO, but if the use is going to be limited to a few hours a day, it is most likely that the most normal and simple BarraCuda will work in the same way as it worked within Apple's TimeCapsule for the past few years. Think about the projected use that will be given and buy the device that suits you better.

[Shadewing]

Hi @seagate_surfer, sorry for reviving an old topic but I have a question related to something you said.

 

You mentioned SkyHawk drives not having to deal with vibrations.  I worked in the CCTV industry until recently and I would often see camera storage arrays with 2-8 drives depending on the size of the site, so I'm a bit surprised by that statement.

 

My question is, I'm building an 8 drive array for a friend of mine and have a line on some SkyHawk drives for a great price and I'm wondering how much of a problem the difference in vibration tolerance will be?  I thought there would be no problem until I came across this topic.

 

Thankfully, as NZ is in lockdown, there is no hurry on getting the drives.

[seagate_surfer]

On 4/14/2020 at 4:41 PM, Shadewing said:

Hi @seagate_surfer, sorry for reviving an old topic but I have a question related to something you said.

 

You mentioned SkyHawk drives not having to deal with vibrations.  I worked in the CCTV industry until recently and I would often see camera storage arrays with 2-8 drives depending on the size of the site, so I'm a bit surprised by that statement.

 

My question is, I'm building an 8 drive array for a friend of mine and have a line on some SkyHawk drives for a great price and I'm wondering how much of a problem the difference in vibration tolerance will be?  I thought there would be no problem until I came across this topic.

 

Thankfully, as NZ is in lockdown, there is no hurry on getting the drives.

You're right. I think it was a misinterpretation of the documentation by the person who answered this at the time, before in the communities we were usually not used to respond with such a technical approach, and we also used to redirect customers to the technical support and customer service group. Until I got this job (2019)! I am a type of community content creator who likes to dig deeper into the technical topic a lot, and this is the type of profile I wanted to be in the communities. Anyway, sorry for the confusion, but the technology you are referring to is called RV sensor.

It is included in ironWolf and also in SkyHawk, click the images to see more.

 

Also the SkyHawk for AI-enabled surveillance solutions includes it, they reaffirm in its presentation video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_s8gj4lMbw0&feature=youtu.be

If you want to know if the RV sensor is included or not, go and check your model number directly on the page, in the data sheet and in the user manual, you should find information about it: https://www.seagate.com/internal-hard-drives/hdd/skyhawk/#features

[johnythecash]

Hi all,

can somebody tell me what harddrives are used in external Seagate Basic discs (series STJL), is this information available anywhere? I just want to know if discs used inside the case have normal SATA connector with USB reduction or they have only USB like some WD harddrives used in external cases?

I can't find it in Seagate's datasheets.

[tunasjaya]

@seagate_surfer if i have 1 ssd for the os, and iwant another hdd for storage, can i use skyhawk? if yes, what will be the impact for me, if no why?, as i undersstand that skyhawk can run 24/7 while baracuda cannot, also skyhawk higer price, so i assump that it will be more longer i can use since main os allready using ssd drive

[conankunkid]

Hi @seagate_surfer. Since you have a follow up post saying that the Skyhawk AI also have vibration feature, so back to the question, is there any difference really between IronWolf and Skyhawk / Skyhawk AI?

 

At the moment, I'm looking for two 10TB drive for my CCTV setup (2 DVR each with 16 cam). And currently the Skyhawk model is either out of stock or at a very ridiculous price point in my country (Indonesia). I've browsed around and it seems I can have the IronWolf harddrives for cheaper.

 

So, is it okay if I use IronWolf drive for my CCTV? Would it brick in short time because it's not designed for the constant read/write 24/7 366 days? or is it actually a better product than SkyHawk and I should get it instead?