As of spring 2018, the Seagate Exos 7E8 ST8000NM0055 8TB drives are the best bang for the buck in terms of $/TB and features though the 10TB version is not far behind on the price front. I compared this enterprise grade drive to both Seagate's consumer line equivalents (Barracuda Pro/Ironwolf/Ironwolf Pro) and similar offerings from rival brands (HGST and WD) and this drive is compelling in many ways:
1) It has the largest cache at 256MB while many competitors offer only 128MB cache on similar drives
2) Unlike consumer NAS drives, it is rated at 7200rpm instead of the slower 5400rpm which means it's noticeably faster than the Seagate ST4000VN000 NAS drives that I run in my QNAP
3) It actually surpasses consumer grade NAS drives in terms of both annual write load (~500TB vs. ~300TB) and MTF (~ 2million vs. ~1million)
4) Since it is an enterprise grade drive it is designed for always-on workloads and is suited for high-vibration environments such as in server racks
5) Unlike many consumer grade drives, these drives actually come with a full 5 year warranty (more on that later).
However there are also a few (not many) cons:
1) This drive is a bit noisy. All my drives have the SN04 firmware which resolves many of the noise complaints reported on here about clicking sounds, etc present on the same drives with earlier firmware. But this drive is still louder than many consumer grade drives, especially the ones rated for lower rpms. It can seem a bit alarming, but none of my drive diagnostics turn up any problems and it's not drastically louder to be annoying next to my desk.
2) These drives seem to run a bit hot. I suspect that they are specced to run a bit hot anyway since they are designed for enterprise data center environments but I'd still advise beefier cooling solutions. I replaced stock fans on my enclosures with higher grade Noctua fans and they seem happy so far.
Overall, I am very happy with these drives and have 8 of them running on 2 separate arrays with no problems. They are fast, reliable (so far), and seem to be very robust.
Finally, regarding warranties, there are reports on Amazon of some third party sellers selling OEM drives that may have been pulled from actual server units and thus do not come with valid warranties from Seagate. While it is true that these drives are usually OEM drives, Seagate does sell OEM drives that come with valid end-user warranties serviced directly through Seagate so just because they are OEM doesn't mean they won't come with a warranty. It all depends on the seller and where they sourced their products. I got all 8 of my drives through SabrePC and they told me all their new drives are under warranty. The drives' S/N all checked out on Seagate's website as having valid 5 year warranties when I got them. As a plus, SabrePC is usually the cheapest price anyway. So no complaints from me on that front. Their customer service is also very responsive if you call them with questions.
| Hard Drive | 8 TB Mechanical Hard Disk |
|---|---|
| Number of USB 2.0 Ports | 1 |
