Has to be said in a Scottish accent (like 'Scotty' from Star Trek) :) I would very much like to see more HDD reviews in general, not just NAS focused. These days where we all have huge digital media consumption i have found they have remained relevant in my daily use. The backblaze guide is still the only rough guide we have to that all important reliability aspect, and now that HGST have been bought by Seagate, we have ended up losing one of the most reliable brands over the last decade (more or less). For me the biggest factor is the manufacturers warranty when looking at HDD, sure you can get ones that break before that time (or live long after it!), but i figure if a manufacturer offers 5 years that must mean something in real terms, so i only buy drives (SSD as well) that offer 5 years cover. It's a long detailed and important topic (especially after that period 5-6 years back when HDD were often failing within a year) and other than backblaze we do not have any kind of solid information, so the more reviews from people like yourself the better. Still how can 'you' determine reliability in a review etc?
@@TheMighty_T If you look at what’s available currently it makes more sense to go for the NAS drives as they’re priced better. WD for example sells a Blue 8 TB for $250 while the Red Plus is $198. If you look at the hard drives in external enclosures those are even cheaper and many of the WD units use a white label Red drive.
I Always choose Toshiba HDDs the P-Series (on Desktop and Laptop PC) and now the N-Series for NAS-Storage, i had never a failure on a Toshiba HDD Since more than 10+ years!
Someone who understands? EVERYONE UNDERSTANDS, it's three corporations that are cutting corners that doesn't care.. Because I'm sure they understand the difference. Let's just blame this on greed/theft.
The Toshiba drives are mechanically built for fast seek times, which is why they make audible chatter when seeking. The difference shows up in the random access time test, which is only 12ms on the Toshiba but typically 15-16ms on most other 7200rpm drives. Historically these would be separate categories of drives, but as the market for hard drives has shrunk, the products are getting consolidated. Nowadays hard drive manufacturers will design a drive with some range of capacities that it can support, and then market it to different customers with different labels and firmware. The Toshiba X300/N300 are analogous to many old models of the WD Black, RE, or various old SCSI drives that were designed for workstations and servers. Toshiba uses the same drives in the "enterprise" market, which is why they prioritize seek performance over quietness. But if you're not worried about power/heat and seek noise then they're a good choice for reliability. Most of the bad reviews you find from buyers of these drives are about the noise and not about failures. I've seen some of the Seagate IronWolf drives get the same noise complaints and it's probably the same reason. Personally I have five of the 4-5TB Toshibas in my server with no failures yet. I think the age range is 3-5yrs. But I also had no issues with a couple 2TB WD Reds. If you use them for sequentially accessed large files (video), then seek noise won't really present itself. Honestly though, for a NAS where performance isn't a big issue, low power 5400rpm drives make a lot of sense.
Well of course nas/server hdds in large 8-10tb+ range are going to be louder than consumer drives. For example a 12tb drive might have 4 to 8 platters and 8 to 16 seek heads. But with time manufacturers reduce platter number with higher densities. Hence the rapid clicking heard when things are read. Less so when written. But it shouldnt be that loud if its in a pc. Especially the ones with sound dampening. If its in a nas enclosure on a table a few feet from you and theres more than one drive and it's a raid, the clicking might drive you nuts. Probably anything above 2tb will have more than 1 platter and 2 heads per platter but dont quote me.
This has to be one of the best videos on TH-cam. I'm a huge fan of the WD Red I've had 8 2TB Red's running in a raid 5 array 24x7 for over eight years. The array is constantly being used with multiple red/write operations. I'm about to start prepping for a new NAS build which will be WD Red.
Great video, thank you. You've informed my decision! Definitely going with the standard WD Red. Overall read performance is boosted by utilising RAID and as you said, the network is the bottleneck. For example, streaming 4k uses only around 50Mbps so I'm perfectly happy with the base performance in these tests, which will comfortably serve content on a Gigabit ethernet.
Don't worry, addictions can be dangerous, but the first step is admitting you have a problem. Just be careful with shipping. According to NZXT, things can be shaken loose while shipping. We have confirmed at the Verge that you could lose a few GB's during shipping if the package is shaken. To remedy, packages should be stirred, not shaken.
I’m late but I really liked that nas content. There’s so much technical stuff around the nas content , these days , a nas is a storage unit but it does so much more when you know how to use it properly.
Very good review, I have just been adding disks to a number of computers and the Seagate 8tb drives are working well, data transfer rate is about 190 meg/sec and the noise is so low I don't notice it. Installed in computers you get the full data transfer rate and I am only limited to gigabit lan when transferring data from one computer to another. Great stuff, keep it up.
Thanks for a great review! One question: how did you measure your noise levels? It would be great if you could list your measurement equipment, measurement setup (mounting, distance, wher the meter is pointed, etc.) and noise floor - that would make the numbers more comprehensible and easier to put into context :)
I have an 8TB SMR in my secondry system. In my main system I use an Exos 8TB CMR. If I ever move to a NAS I will use only server grade drives such as the Exos
Excellent roundup! Thanks! The only thing I need is to know which drives have APM vs AAM (advance power v acoustic management) . I think all of them will have NCQ technology.
I just built a new NAS using a sound-dampening PC box from Antec and I have 12 drives in it and you can't hear it from 5 feet away. I did opt for the WD drives at 5400 rpm since my server is primarily used to house our Plex collection of movies and tv shows. I did buy my drives from several sources so I would not get the same manufacturing dates. The slow speed also makes the drives a bit cooler in my experience. I lost three drives in my old NAS due to overheating and all were Toshiba brands of various sizes. I replaced them all with Ironwolf at that time due to cost.
Did you also listen to the noise these drives make, by any chance? I mean, numbers are one thing, but if one drive produces noise in a lower frequency range than another, that might be perceived as louder, even though the numbers may be in favor of that drive.
Okay, thanks. With my slow LAN low-tier NAS coming in the post, you very much convinced me WD is the better option for me, especially since it's slightly cheaper than the Iron Wolf in the EU these days. Thank you.
Great video I'm wondering what difference does cache size provide in a NAS drive as the Red pro's, in particular, the 14TB are available with 256 or 512?
I love, that you point out "the catch" of the network-bandwidth limitation at 4:50 and not simply let the "longer bar better" stand in the room. In deed in the usual Raid5 (or a modern variation) these 4/5 hdds even are enough for 2.5G ethernet... and as they also are usually cooler, quieter, and use less energy I would have no problem using 5.400rpm HDD in a NAS - esp. when you have it in the same room you work. Ok - by now (I'm aware I'm writing under a 3 year old vid) most bigger hdd will be high-rpm... but in deed for NAS-use in a homeoffice-network up to 2.5G the speed of the single HDD is not that important. If you need fast access - e.g. for VMs running on your NAS or directly editing data on it - a lot of new NAS support a pair of m.2 SSDs in addition to the HDDs in a tiered-config (often used data will automatically be stored on the SSD).
Oh - and another tip (is it noticeable I just upgraded my NAS and have my brain filled with too much info pouring out 😅): Before you choose a cheaper 2-bay NAS - check the harddisc prices. Sometimes it is cheaper to buy the slightly more expensive 4-bay and four smaller, cheaper HDDs to reach your target capacity.
This video is a combination of high end videography and being extremely informative at the same time. I was really close to buy SATA drives for my NAS! I just got a synology ds920+ on an special offer, but i am not ready to rig up all 4 slots, I also don't have the need right now. Can i go with 2x 4tb and let the other 2 slots empty for now? Wd red pro 7200rmp is 124€ and iron wolf 5900rmp 112€ in Germany. What is your suggestion? Thanks
Everyone seems to avoid even talking about hard drives now so I didn't even know what to look for with the newer ones. Thanks for this review! I want a NAS, but I'm not sure I need one. $400 per drive inclines me to find an actual reason before getting one. 😄
If I could store everything on SSDs I would, but with all the 4K footage, it'll probably be closer to $4000 worth of SSDs just to store it all In the end it's still a tool though. It'll depend on what you actually want to do if a NAS makes sense to buy.
It's so nice and refreshing to see an attractive female youtube tech host who not only presents well but actually knows her shit when it comes to the technical details. I've only seen one other female tech tuber on all of TH-cam at this level so keep up the great work!
Thank you Nada! You're simply the best while being drop dead gorgeous to boot! Yes I love this content and would be really interested in an SSD NAS roundup too. I also wouldn't mind seeing lower size drives as I don't have the editing needs you do, but it's a minimal thing! Thank you so much! ❤🤗😍
I purchased and sent back 3 Seagate 14tb Hard Drives as all were dead or faulty, in the end I bought a Toshiba N300 14tb and can't fault it. It was also £60 cheaper than the Seagates. I'd certainly buy another Toshiba HD, will be putting them in my Synology 920+ NAS in the new year
For some reasons enterprise drives are cheaper then regular nas drives for large capacitys so you should get them. In terms of raw cost/gb the 18tb enterprise capacity drive from toshiba seems to be the best one right now
I have very bad experience with WD Red 3TB drives (during the 3 years ownership) especially when being used for RAID5 setup/restore on my Synology NAS. I have 2 out of 3 that was sent back for RMA. Eventually, they would failed as well and I switched to Seagate IronWolf. Been good so far.
Would be interesting to seenis there's any real difference between surveilance, nas, and pro compute drives. I know most brands have at least 3 different types of drives in each capacity ("7200" "5000" and SMR) but the rest is if anything just firmware and marketing, which from want ive seen, barely makes a difference.
Thanks for the great info! I am looking at the DS1520+ and I am also thinking about...Storage Tiering. Since there are 5 drive bays and 1 NVME Cache I am thinking of creating 2 storage tiers, SSD (Hot) and HDD (Cold) Then I want to tier them together. Cach Tier Hot Tier Cold Tier 1. is this possible? 2. Is this a supported / recommended solution 3. Is this a terrible idea because I clearly don't understand NAS because if I did then I would know to NEVER ask this and I should crawl away into a corner and cry 🤣 Thanks!
My ironwolf 8tb is loud as hell and I have it inside a Arcade1up machine. I've actually owned 2 (Had a few too much to drink and dropped one) so I know it wasn't a dud. They are pretty good drives though, just loud.
Good info. I'd like to see a video about one of the NAS solutions for a beginner like say a Synology product. A how-to style video with some of the drives shown here would be very helpful.
It doesn't feature these drives, but Stephan made a video some time ago that goes through some of the basics. I think that also covered some 4TB drives. It's a bit older, but still valid: th-cam.com/video/N_vr7rJWl2U/w-d-xo.html
Only reason I'm here is because the toshiba drives are at about half price compared to the rest where I live so to see they're pretty much the same is a good sign
Good video. However, slightly puzzled why you weren't comparing apples with apples. Youcompared the 14Tb WD Red Pro against the standard Ironwolf and not the IronWolf Pro version.
@@TechTesters Thanks for responding. I understand now, I thought you had drives for testing provided to you. Would love to see an updated video looking at how these drives compare today after a couple years of service.
Thx for review. I noticed that quite often reviews are about gaming or normal data storage, but i think most storage data users are photographers! And I have few questions, for example what is the difference between 7200rpm and 5600rmp(apart that what u said ;) which one live longer, which drive is dealing faster with one large capacity file, for example 50mb if u have 1200 files on SD card, is better to have 4tb with 3disks or for example 8tb with 6 of them wich one give more heat? Thx for respond.
WD management are to blame. SMR is the stupidest technology ever to afflict hard drives. WD manglement retards thought they could slip SMR under our noses forever. Nas user sued. Court ruled. End of. Basically unforgivable if there wasn't court ruling. But now WD tells you which drives are SMR. As long as u check the data sheets and are certain you are buying CMR not SMR, there's nothing to fear.
HDD still very important, specially if have big steam library games getting bigger and bigger SSD is not enough for sure. Good review I am interested in this stuff, not many reviewers talk about HDD lately which is pretty important topic if you are not just casual
Thanks for the good review and also opinions on each drive. Went with the 14tb Ironwolf. Do you happen to know if there are any issues with connecting to windows 7, 10, or 11?
@@TechTesters Great, thanks for the info! Seems like all you have to do is go into Computer Management and enable the new driver when over 2TB (at least with Windows 7). Also--do you happen to know the differences between 14tb Ironwolf and 14tb Ironwolf PRO? I get the PRO is faster....but in reality, if it is noticed.
Looking forward to a roundup of the next generation of hi-tech hdd from WD and Seagate fall of 2021. These are promised to utilise a heat or microwave to achieve higher density (HAMR AND MAMR). This means data transfer will be faster than current generation (rotary advantage of higher density) and will shame all budget and some mid range ssd
Have you've heard about "head parking" on hdd's? You should consider this too since you have mention non-SMR and these two are not related to each other, but when you are buying hdd you are expecting to last as much as more... ;)
@@TechTesters my first PC as a kid didn't even have a HDD... just a pair of 720kb floppy drives (and 640kb of RAM).That would have been a $2,000 (US) machine in 1988
Hello Techtester. Question: I'm a very casual NAS user. Have a 2 Bay QNAP NAS for 4 years now. Love it!!! ... but really just for storing and safekeeping my pics and vids. I've begun recording in 4K and that is filling my old 4 TB WD Red HDD's (RAID 1). I'm thinking of installing a pair of 16 TB Exos HDD's because they are much LESS cost per TB than IronWolf NAS HDD's here in Canada. BUT ... I'm not a Tech God ... I need plug and play. Is Exos reasonable or stupid for me? Small explanation of your answer pls? Thx!!
Excellent review. I also would like to see more HDD and SSD reviews. I am glad you mentioned noise in your review. I remember back in the 90's and early 2000's how noisy the SCSI drives were. Today's drives are a whisper in comparison. The only drives I don't like are HGST. They can be quite noisy. I haven't used them in a few years. I returned mine and replaced them with WD Red's. I am considering getting some Iron Wolf drives.
Heh, thankfully things have improved since the 80s and 90s, HDDs were terrible then. These 14TB ones especially are just insanely quiet, can't even hear them during random access unless you put your head next to them.
Just got my first NAS on order a 2 bay model from Synology, and am getting 2 Western Digital Red drives for it 4 Tb for both drives, cause what is going to go on the NAS only adds up to about a 1 Tb , so 4 should give me some room to grow, before needing replacement
I have a Toshiba N300 in my OptiPlex 9020. Due to the long spin-up time the drive is not recognized at boot. So I have to do a warm reboot if i want it. It's not my bootdisk (for that i have a 500G nvme on a pcie-card. But it's annoying i have to reboot to get the system up and running in its full configuration. Btw with the rubber mounts inside the box the N300 can't be heard.
This doesn't make sense. a 5k4 or 5k6 rpm drive is dead slow for random access and in a raid setup, that's what you get. You won't get sequencial access. The Seagate Exos drives are brilliant btw, IMHO. Very fast, silent and according to the data from Backblaze, they're very good, especially compared to their price.
I just had a 10tb wd red plus WD101EFAX come in yesterday, put it in my system and within 5 mins took it out because the vibration noise was so loud it was louder than the box fan i had running. Apparently thats because all the 10tb now are air based. i was hoping it would be as good as my 4tb wd reds WD40EFRX that make absolutely 0 noise. you have to put your ear on them to hear anything. any chance you can test the wd red 12tb models. considering this one WD120EFAX but cant find any technical specs on noise comparison vs my 4tbs.
Yes, they worth it. Want cheap ones? Buy the Xbox black 12tb hard drives and shuck it, they literally use WD golds in there. I was shocked when i shucked mine and also "furious" that i only bought one. Since then the price never dropped in my country.
ooh, i can make use of my 10gbs ethernet port on my pc! lol - just got to work out what the best setup is for my budget - bookmarked for future reference
Great video but why did you not include the IronWolf Pro since you had the WD Red Pro drive? I have a 10TB IronWolf Pro in my PC case just as a large game drive and it is great and has a 5-year warranty.
@@TechTesters Ohhh I got you but the IronWolf Pro is the competitor for the Red pro. The IronWolf Pro is a beast I hope you do a video about it soon keep up the good content! Love your accent by the way.
.........BEST REGARDs from BAVARIA! GREAT VIDEO! ....but what about "Seagate Exos X - X16 14TB, 512e/4Kn, SATA 6Gb/s (ST14000NM001G)" for 254 EUR???? ...its superfast, it has 2.5MioMTBF and 550TBW and 5YearsWarranty! ...what do you think? The only proplem - but i dont know - is a hibernation issue with synology nas!? .......or a "Toshiba Enterprise Capacity MG07ACA 12TB, 512e, SATA 6Gb/s (MG07ACA12TE)"
I did NASee that coming.
Has to be said in a Scottish accent (like 'Scotty' from Star Trek) :)
I would very much like to see more HDD reviews in general, not just NAS focused. These days where we all have huge digital media consumption i have found they have remained relevant in my daily use.
The backblaze guide is still the only rough guide we have to that all important reliability aspect, and now that HGST have been bought by Seagate, we have ended up losing one of the most reliable brands over the last decade (more or less). For me the biggest factor is the manufacturers warranty when looking at HDD, sure you can get ones that break before that time (or live long after it!), but i figure if a manufacturer offers 5 years that must mean something in real terms, so i only buy drives (SSD as well) that offer 5 years cover.
It's a long detailed and important topic (especially after that period 5-6 years back when HDD were often failing within a year) and other than backblaze we do not have any kind of solid information, so the more reviews from people like yourself the better. Still how can 'you' determine reliability in a review etc?
@@TheMighty_T If you look at what’s available currently it makes more sense to go for the NAS drives as they’re priced better. WD for example sells a Blue 8 TB for $250 while the Red Plus is $198. If you look at the hard drives in external enclosures those are even cheaper and many of the WD units use a white label Red drive.
I understood that reference...
finally ...someone who understands the importance of non-SMR in Raid systems..THANK YOU !!
I Always choose Toshiba HDDs the P-Series (on Desktop and Laptop PC) and now the N-Series for NAS-Storage, i had never a failure on a Toshiba HDD Since more than 10+ years!
@@hanspeterx have you heard about "head parking" on hdd's? That's why your Toshiba lasts longer than other disk drives. ;)
2:03
might be too late, but how about MN Series?
Someone who understands? EVERYONE UNDERSTANDS, it's three corporations that are cutting corners that doesn't care.. Because I'm sure they understand the difference. Let's just blame this on greed/theft.
The Toshiba drives are mechanically built for fast seek times, which is why they make audible chatter when seeking. The difference shows up in the random access time test, which is only 12ms on the Toshiba but typically 15-16ms on most other 7200rpm drives. Historically these would be separate categories of drives, but as the market for hard drives has shrunk, the products are getting consolidated.
Nowadays hard drive manufacturers will design a drive with some range of capacities that it can support, and then market it to different customers with different labels and firmware.
The Toshiba X300/N300 are analogous to many old models of the WD Black, RE, or various old SCSI drives that were designed for workstations and servers. Toshiba uses the same drives in the "enterprise" market, which is why they prioritize seek performance over quietness. But if you're not worried about power/heat and seek noise then they're a good choice for reliability. Most of the bad reviews you find from buyers of these drives are about the noise and not about failures.
I've seen some of the Seagate IronWolf drives get the same noise complaints and it's probably the same reason.
Personally I have five of the 4-5TB Toshibas in my server with no failures yet. I think the age range is 3-5yrs. But I also had no issues with a couple 2TB WD Reds.
If you use them for sequentially accessed large files (video), then seek noise won't really present itself.
Honestly though, for a NAS where performance isn't a big issue, low power 5400rpm drives make a lot of sense.
Well of course nas/server hdds in large 8-10tb+ range are going to be louder than consumer drives. For example a 12tb drive might have 4 to 8 platters and 8 to 16 seek heads. But with time manufacturers reduce platter number with higher densities. Hence the rapid clicking heard when things are read. Less so when written. But it shouldnt be that loud if its in a pc. Especially the ones with sound dampening. If its in a nas enclosure on a table a few feet from you and theres more than one drive and it's a raid, the clicking might drive you nuts. Probably anything above 2tb will have more than 1 platter and 2 heads per platter but dont quote me.
This has to be one of the best videos on TH-cam. I'm a huge fan of the WD Red I've had 8 2TB Red's running in a raid 5 array 24x7 for over eight years. The array is constantly being used with multiple red/write operations. I'm about to start prepping for a new NAS build which will be WD Red.
Great, I was just looking at 14TB NAS drives recently. Excellent timing.
Happy to hear! :D
Which one did you buy? Looking for the same too.
Great video, thank you. You've informed my decision! Definitely going with the standard WD Red. Overall read performance is boosted by utilising RAID and as you said, the network is the bottleneck. For example, streaming 4k uses only around 50Mbps so I'm perfectly happy with the base performance in these tests, which will comfortably serve content on a Gigabit ethernet.
Don't worry, addictions can be dangerous, but the first step is admitting you have a problem.
Just be careful with shipping. According to NZXT, things can be shaken loose while shipping. We have confirmed at the Verge that you could lose a few GB's during shipping if the package is shaken.
To remedy, packages should be stirred, not shaken.
Thanks for an excellent and concise comparison, with no extra unnecessary chatter. Well done!
Western Digital Gold is at same price as Red Pro in most cases at least in EU.
Probably worth a consideration aswell.
I’m late but I really liked that nas content. There’s so much technical stuff around the nas content , these days , a nas is a storage unit but it does so much more when you know how to use it properly.
Never seen this reviewer but she really knows her stuff. Looking forward to seeing more of their content
Thank you 😊
My NAS sits in a tech closet 20 feet away so I couldn't care less how noisy it is.
Going with the Ironwolf for max performance! Thanks for the video.
If that's the case, that makes sense! Happy to help.
Very good review, I have just been adding disks to a number of computers and the Seagate 8tb drives are working well, data transfer rate is about 190 meg/sec and the noise is so low I don't notice it. Installed in computers you get the full data transfer rate and I am only limited to gigabit lan when transferring data from one computer to another. Great stuff, keep it up.
Thanks for a great review! One question: how did you measure your noise levels? It would be great if you could list your measurement equipment, measurement setup (mounting, distance, wher the meter is pointed, etc.) and noise floor - that would make the numbers more comprehensible and easier to put into context :)
Thanks for this helpful review. Glad to have discovered this channel. 🇳🇱👍
Well done, you present your information very well. Thank you
Best tech guide channel.
Just picked up 4x WD 8tb drives 👍
I have an 8TB SMR in my secondry system. In my main system I use an Exos 8TB CMR. If I ever move to a NAS I will use only server grade drives such as the Exos
Excellent roundup! Thanks! The only thing I need is to know which drives have APM vs AAM (advance power v acoustic management) . I think all of them will have NCQ technology.
I just built a new NAS using a sound-dampening PC box from Antec and I have 12 drives in it and you can't hear it from 5 feet away. I did opt for the WD drives at 5400 rpm since my server is primarily used to house our Plex collection of movies and tv shows. I did buy my drives from several sources so I would not get the same manufacturing dates. The slow speed also makes the drives a bit cooler in my experience. I lost three drives in my old NAS due to overheating and all were Toshiba brands of various sizes. I replaced them all with Ironwolf at that time due to cost.
FYI good air flow with case fan to the Harddrives will prolong the drive and performance. And do dust them out too after some time!
absolutely!
Did you also listen to the noise these drives make, by any chance? I mean, numbers are one thing, but if one drive produces noise in a lower frequency range than another, that might be perceived as louder, even though the numbers may be in favor of that drive.
Great, very differenciated video. Subscribed. :)
Would have loved to see the Ironwolf Pro in addition to the WD Red Pro.
Thanks! And I'll try to add more, but they're not easy to get (or expensive to all buy 😁)
A brilliant review! Thank you very much!
My favorite tech channel
Okay, thanks. With my slow LAN low-tier NAS coming in the post, you very much convinced me WD is the better option for me, especially since it's slightly cheaper than the Iron Wolf in the EU these days. Thank you.
Time to look for the NAS enclosure video. Great info.
Havent really done one, but been pretty happy with our synology setups so far.
Great video I'm wondering what difference does cache size provide in a NAS drive as the Red pro's, in particular, the 14TB are available with 256 or 512?
Was time to check for a HDD to upgrade my NAS, and You review even that?! Nice, I'll grab a cup of coffee :P
I swear i just thinking about building a home NAS and this video popped in. Are youtube capable of reading people's mind now?
Feels like it sometimes 😂
I just got 4 of the 5 WD Red Pro 14 TB drives for my NAS. I bought them for the same price as the WD Reds, so hooray!
Yes ...., Network speed ..., is important to consider ..., most videos forget about it ...
Very nice overview.
I did a sinology NAS 15y ago and it's come a long way. I'm looking to build a 6bay soon ish.
We definitely need a video on SSD comparison
I will definitely do something with SSDs soon too!
Thank you for mentioning SMR NAS drives which I do really want to avoid.
Surprise, the WD 14TB are both 7200rpm drives, even though they market the other one as "5400rpm class".
I love, that you point out "the catch" of the network-bandwidth limitation at 4:50 and not simply let the "longer bar better" stand in the room.
In deed in the usual Raid5 (or a modern variation) these 4/5 hdds even are enough for 2.5G ethernet... and as they also are usually cooler, quieter, and use less energy I would have no problem using 5.400rpm HDD in a NAS - esp. when you have it in the same room you work.
Ok - by now (I'm aware I'm writing under a 3 year old vid) most bigger hdd will be high-rpm... but in deed for NAS-use in a homeoffice-network up to 2.5G the speed of the single HDD is not that important.
If you need fast access - e.g. for VMs running on your NAS or directly editing data on it - a lot of new NAS support a pair of m.2 SSDs in addition to the HDDs in a tiered-config (often used data will automatically be stored on the SSD).
Oh - and another tip (is it noticeable I just upgraded my NAS and have my brain filled with too much info pouring out 😅):
Before you choose a cheaper 2-bay NAS - check the harddisc prices. Sometimes it is cheaper to buy the slightly more expensive 4-bay and four smaller, cheaper HDDs to reach your target capacity.
Very detail and informative as always, Now I have better understanding which HDD should I go with! Thanks again!
#NAS #WD #Seagate
This video is a combination of high end videography and being extremely informative at the same time.
I was really close to buy SATA drives for my NAS!
I just got a synology ds920+ on an special offer, but i am not ready to rig up all 4 slots, I also don't have the need right now.
Can i go with 2x 4tb and let the other 2 slots empty for now? Wd red pro 7200rmp is 124€ and iron wolf 5900rmp 112€ in Germany.
What is your suggestion?
Thanks
I still buy today Hard Drive! They are very fast with 256mb cache inside! Very durable !
Everyone seems to avoid even talking about hard drives now so I didn't even know what to look for with the newer ones. Thanks for this review! I want a NAS, but I'm not sure I need one. $400 per drive inclines me to find an actual reason before getting one. 😄
If I could store everything on SSDs I would, but with all the 4K footage, it'll probably be closer to $4000 worth of SSDs just to store it all
In the end it's still a tool though. It'll depend on what you actually want to do if a NAS makes sense to buy.
It's so nice and refreshing to see an attractive female youtube tech host who not only presents well but actually knows her shit when it comes to the technical details. I've only seen one other female tech tuber on all of TH-cam at this level so keep up the great work!
I'll take that compliment, thanks :D
I would absolutely love to see a NAS SSD comparison
A comparison between WD RED, WD RED PRO, WD GOLD - Would have been good.
You forgot RED Plus (CMR)
WD Gold is phased out and replaced by the WD Ultrastar.
Thank you Nada! You're simply the best while being drop dead gorgeous to boot! Yes I love this content and would be really interested in an SSD NAS roundup too. I also wouldn't mind seeing lower size drives as I don't have the editing needs you do, but it's a minimal thing! Thank you so much! ❤🤗😍
I purchased and sent back 3 Seagate 14tb Hard Drives as all were dead or faulty, in the end I bought a Toshiba N300 14tb and can't fault it. It was also £60 cheaper than the Seagates. I'd certainly buy another Toshiba HD, will be putting them in my Synology 920+ NAS in the new year
Those are the Helium filled ones. How is the write and seek noise?
For some reasons enterprise drives are cheaper then regular nas drives for large capacitys so you should get them. In terms of raw cost/gb the 18tb enterprise capacity drive from toshiba seems to be the best one right now
Really enjoyed the review, would have love to hear more about the difference of ~Workload Rate Limit~
awesome review, thankyou, WD red for me.
Fantastic video.
I have very bad experience with WD Red 3TB drives (during the 3 years ownership) especially when being used for RAID5 setup/restore on my Synology NAS. I have 2 out of 3 that was sent back for RMA. Eventually, they would failed as well and I switched to Seagate IronWolf. Been good so far.
I think the 3tb models were more problematic in general right? I only had 4 and 6tb, no prob so far.
Would be interesting to seenis there's any real difference between surveilance, nas, and pro compute drives.
I know most brands have at least 3 different types of drives in each capacity ("7200" "5000" and SMR) but the rest is if anything just firmware and marketing, which from want ive seen, barely makes a difference.
Thanks for the great info! I am looking at the DS1520+ and I am also thinking about...Storage Tiering.
Since there are 5 drive bays and 1 NVME Cache I am thinking of creating 2 storage tiers, SSD (Hot) and HDD (Cold)
Then I want to tier them together.
Cach Tier
Hot Tier
Cold Tier
1. is this possible?
2. Is this a supported / recommended solution
3. Is this a terrible idea because I clearly don't understand NAS because if I did then I would know to NEVER ask this and I should crawl away into a corner and cry 🤣
Thanks!
Great video, Nada.
Will these drives run a plex media server comfortably? First time buyer, Enjoy the video. Thanks
My ironwolf 8tb is loud as hell and I have it inside a Arcade1up machine. I've actually owned 2 (Had a few too much to drink and dropped one) so I know it wasn't a dud. They are pretty good drives though, just loud.
Where did you buy your desktop pc case. It looks awesome. Thank you for your video.
It's a Cosmos C700M. Not sure where you can buy them at this point 😊
Good info. I'd like to see a video about one of the NAS solutions for a beginner like say a Synology product. A how-to style video with some of the drives shown here would be very helpful.
It doesn't feature these drives, but Stephan made a video some time ago that goes through some of the basics. I think that also covered some 4TB drives. It's a bit older, but still valid: th-cam.com/video/N_vr7rJWl2U/w-d-xo.html
@@TechTesters Thanks for the info. I use Linux so I wanted to ask if the set up should be the same. Thanks again.
I see we mentioning if they have cmr or smr. How do we know which one is good for seagate?
Only reason I'm here is because the toshiba drives are at about half price compared to the rest where I live so to see they're pretty much the same is a good sign
Literally was researching this a couple of hours ago. Soooo helpful thank you!
Happy to hear! :D
Good video. However, slightly puzzled why you weren't comparing apples with apples. Youcompared the 14Tb WD Red Pro against the standard Ironwolf and not the IronWolf Pro version.
Thanks! And I simply compared those drives I could get my hands on, it's a bit too expensive to buy all the drives I'd actually like to test :)
@@TechTesters Thanks for responding. I understand now, I thought you had drives for testing provided to you. Would love to see an updated video looking at how these drives compare today after a couple years of service.
Thx for review. I noticed that quite often reviews are about gaming or normal data storage, but i think most storage data users are photographers! And I have few questions, for example what is the difference between 7200rpm and 5600rmp(apart that what u said ;) which one live longer, which drive is dealing faster with one large capacity file, for example 50mb if u have 1200 files on SD card, is better to have 4tb with 3disks or for example 8tb with 6 of them wich one give more heat? Thx for respond.
WD are not necessarily 5400rpm just 5400rpm "class."
After the SMR shit WD pulled, why would anyone trust them?
Thanks, didnt know what this was, but now on my radar to avoid
WD management are to blame. SMR is the stupidest technology ever to afflict hard drives. WD manglement retards thought they could slip SMR under our noses forever. Nas user sued. Court ruled. End of. Basically unforgivable if there wasn't court ruling. But now WD tells you which drives are SMR. As long as u check the data sheets and are certain you are buying CMR not SMR, there's nothing to fear.
very good!!! thanks
Just wondering why would you not compare Seagate Ironwolf Pro with WD Red Pro?
very helpful, thanks!
Good review. Thx!!
HDD still very important, specially if have big steam library games getting bigger and bigger SSD is not enough for sure.
Good review I am interested in this stuff, not many reviewers talk about HDD lately which is pretty important topic if you are not just casual
sorry I think it's just a little weird here to ignore the 16 and 18tb models since they are the sweetspot.
Thanks for the good review and also opinions on each drive. Went with the 14tb Ironwolf. Do you happen to know if there are any issues with connecting to windows 7, 10, or 11?
My pleasure! And I don't see why any of those WIndows versions would have issues with these HDDs tbh
@@TechTesters Great, thanks for the info! Seems like all you have to do is go into Computer Management and enable the new driver when over 2TB (at least with Windows 7).
Also--do you happen to know the differences between 14tb Ironwolf and 14tb Ironwolf PRO? I get the PRO is faster....but in reality, if it is noticed.
amazing videos, thank you.
Ah, i see you have the machine that goes 'ping!'.
It's true that all drives will eventually fail, but the toshibas will fail first. Usually within a month after the warranty expires.
i believe ironwolf keeps getting hardware awards
I'm sure they all do xD
Looking forward to a roundup of the next generation of hi-tech hdd from WD and Seagate fall of 2021. These are promised to utilise a heat or microwave to achieve higher density (HAMR AND MAMR). This means data transfer will be faster than current generation (rotary advantage of higher density) and will shame all budget and some mid range ssd
I did get a few new ones in, I haven't checked them out yet though.
Have you've heard about "head parking" on hdd's? You should consider this too since you have mention non-SMR and these two are not related to each other, but when you are buying hdd you are expecting to last as much as more... ;)
I run two 4TB Toshiba N300 in RAID1 for my home surveillance system :)
I remember paying $400 for a 4 gig drive back in 1998! that was big then
I don't remember how much it cost, but I do remember HDDs being measured in Megabytes ;)
@@TechTesters my first PC as a kid didn't even have a HDD... just a pair of 720kb floppy drives (and 640kb of RAM).That would have been a $2,000 (US) machine in 1988
@@TechTesters my first PC had a 99 mb HDD, I paid like $2,000 for that P.C and the Modem Speed was 56k man I feel old!
@@CCharlesHahn yes, I remember using these as a kid, 1 GB seemed impossible back in those days!
Hello Techtester. Question: I'm a very casual NAS user. Have a 2 Bay QNAP NAS for 4 years now. Love it!!! ... but really just for storing and safekeeping my pics and vids. I've begun recording in 4K and that is filling my old 4 TB WD Red HDD's (RAID 1). I'm thinking of installing a pair of 16 TB Exos HDD's because they are much LESS cost per TB than IronWolf NAS HDD's here in Canada. BUT ... I'm not a Tech God ... I need plug and play. Is Exos reasonable or stupid for me? Small explanation of your answer pls? Thx!!
I just got a large 18TB exos. Seems to do well, if it's priced well I wouldnt hesitate!
Excellent review. I also would like to see more HDD and SSD reviews. I am glad you mentioned noise in your review. I remember back in the 90's and early 2000's how noisy the SCSI drives were. Today's drives are a whisper in comparison. The only drives I don't like are HGST. They can be quite noisy. I haven't used them in a few years. I returned mine and replaced them with WD Red's. I am considering getting some Iron Wolf drives.
Heh, thankfully things have improved since the 80s and 90s, HDDs were terrible then. These 14TB ones especially are just insanely quiet, can't even hear them during random access unless you put your head next to them.
Western digital also has some badass new purple micro SD cards...there really good...
I just researched SMR to CMR.. shesh, luckily i only have a 6tb WD red SMR. Next a 18tb CMR Iron wolf.
Just got my first NAS on order a 2 bay model from Synology, and am getting 2 Western Digital Red drives for it 4 Tb for both drives, cause what is going to go on the NAS only adds up to about a 1 Tb , so 4 should give me some room to grow, before needing replacement
Ehi gorgeous. Just a suggestion: you forgot to mention the difference in reliability between pro and normal drives (ure rate). Believe me: it matters.
I have a Toshiba N300 in my OptiPlex 9020. Due to the long spin-up time the drive is not recognized at boot. So I have to do a warm reboot if i want it. It's not my bootdisk (for that i have a 500G nvme on a pcie-card. But it's annoying i have to reboot to get the system up and running in its full configuration. Btw with the rubber mounts inside the box the N300 can't be heard.
Thanks a lot , please review Performance drives such as WD Black and Seagate barracuda . Thanks again.
I have the results of the 14tb barracuda, remind me later!
This doesn't make sense. a 5k4 or 5k6 rpm drive is dead slow for random access and in a raid setup, that's what you get. You won't get sequencial access. The Seagate Exos drives are brilliant btw, IMHO. Very fast, silent and according to the data from Backblaze, they're very good, especially compared to their price.
Had two Toshiba X300 drives that failed in a few weeks.
Does a 18TB IronWolf Pro work with a Mac Pro 2019
apples to oranges, tbh
If you want a NAS drive the best is to buy a enterprise version, because that one is more optimized than the NAS niche.
I just had a 10tb wd red plus WD101EFAX come in yesterday, put it in my system and within 5 mins took it out because the vibration noise was so loud it was louder than the box fan i had running. Apparently thats because all the 10tb now are air based. i was hoping it would be as good as my 4tb wd reds WD40EFRX that make absolutely 0 noise. you have to put your ear on them to hear anything. any chance you can test the wd red 12tb models. considering this one WD120EFAX but cant find any technical specs on noise comparison vs my 4tbs.
Wonder if WD Gold is worth considering over the Red Pro drives. Apparently those are rebranded HGST helium drives and also come with a 5y warranty.
Yes, they worth it. Want cheap ones? Buy the Xbox black 12tb hard drives and shuck it, they literally use WD golds in there. I was shocked when i shucked mine and also "furious" that i only bought one. Since then the price never dropped in my country.
ooh, i can make use of my 10gbs ethernet port on my pc! lol - just got to work out what the best setup is for my budget - bookmarked for future reference
Great video but why did you not include the IronWolf Pro since you had the WD Red Pro drive? I have a 10TB IronWolf Pro in my PC case just as a large game drive and it is great and has a 5-year warranty.
I had wanted to see if this content does well before spending a lot more on different drives.
@@TechTesters Ohhh I got you but the IronWolf Pro is the competitor for the Red pro. The IronWolf Pro is a beast I hope you do a video about it soon keep up the good content! Love your accent by the way.
What about the Seagate Exos drives? Those are NAS-Archive drives. Interesting for Movies maybe
.........BEST REGARDs from BAVARIA! GREAT VIDEO! ....but what about "Seagate Exos X - X16 14TB, 512e/4Kn, SATA 6Gb/s (ST14000NM001G)" for 254 EUR???? ...its superfast, it has 2.5MioMTBF and 550TBW and 5YearsWarranty! ...what do you think? The only proplem - but i dont know - is a hibernation issue with synology nas!? .......or a "Toshiba Enterprise Capacity MG07ACA 12TB, 512e, SATA 6Gb/s (MG07ACA12TE)"