Seagate is synonymous with computer storage, and today they announced their latest in server-driven solutions. Announcing their IronWolf, IronWolf Pro, and BarraCuda Pro 12TB drives, Seagate launched themselves to the front of the line when it comes to mass data storage. As a quick look into the drives, the BarraCuda Pro is designed to be the fastest and highest capacity consumer drive on the market. It’s built to be used for data-intensive processes like transferring large files or doing things like photo/video editing. The IronWolf and IronWolf Pro drives are more geared toward NAS/Server usage. All of the drives are a 3.5-inch form-factor and are built to be inserted into your standard NAS or computer.
Let’s start by taking a look at what most would pick up, the BarraCuda Pro. Now that Seagate offers this drive in storage sizes up to 12TB, they’re basically building one of the largest consumer-focused drives on the market. They’re giving it a 5-year warranty, and they rate the drive to be able to read/write up to 300TB/year. Most people don’t do a quarter of that when it comes to data transfer, so you should be good. Being a “Pro” drive, the BarraCuda Pro features read/write speeds up to 250MB/s, which is fantastic for a platter drive.
Next, we have the IronWolf. This drive is built and aimed at people who use a NAS, or a network attached storage system. I have a NAS built by Netgear that I use all the time at my house, and I really would love to throw a few of these 12TB drives in it to store all the things… But seriously, the IronWolf drives are built to be able to use AgileArray which helps optimize the data for RAID arrays. These drives are also compatible with Seagate’s IronWolf Health Management system, which is a drive monitoring system to keep you updated on the status of your storage disks. The IronWolf is also built for 24/7 power-on time so you can keep your data accessible anytime. They also feature a 3-year warranty.
The IronWolf Pro drives are very similar to their little brother, the IronWolf. The Pro series of these drives include Seagate’s “Rescue Data Recovery” which allows you to send your drive off to Seagate anytime within a 2-year period for mechanical, accidental, or natural disaster data recovery. This is an amazing feature if you have mission-critical data on drives that you want to ensure is never lost, no matter what the failure is from. Seagate claims to have a 90% success rate with this in-house data recovery service. The IronWolf Pro offers a 5-year warranty as well as 300TB/year transfer rates, and like its little brother is designed to be run 24/7.
The IronWolf 12TB is the most cost-effective of the bunch, landing at $390 MSRP. The BarraCuda Pro is next at $430, with the IronWolf Pro not far ahead at $440. These drives are slated to be available soon from most of the Seagate partners, like Amazon, Newegg, B&H, and more.
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