Features:

  • IronWolf internal hard drives are the ideal solution for up to 8-bay, multi-user NAS environments craving powerhouse performance
  • Store more and work faster with a NAS-optimized hard drive providing 8TB and cache of up to 256MB
  • Purpose built for NAS enclosures, IronWolf delivers less wear and tear, little to no noise/vibration, no lags or down time, increased file-sharing performance, and much more
  • Easily monitor the health of drives using the integrated IronWolf Health Management system and enjoy long-term reliability with 1M hours MTBF
  • Three-year limited warranty protection plan included
Good Plex Server Drive

I ran out of space on my Plex server's old 4TB HGST 7200rpm Desktop NAS drive, so I had to upgrade. This drive "feels" quicker than the HGST it replaced, but I have not done any real testing. I was surprised to find out that the screw holes did not line up with the holes in my case, but luckily this isn't an issue for me due to the way the drive is positioned in the case. The drive is working well for my always-on Plex server, no complaints.

Excellent Reliability

I've had these for a year shipped to me overseas and plugged into a Synology box. I stressed tested them for a week by filling them with data then running Synology's data scrubbing on them. All are good so far. Those disks were features on Back Blaze's disk reliability blog post at the time and I only bought them after seeing their low failure rates there. Also, Synology updated their firmware 2 weeks after I got them last year in July to better support the IronWolf breed and firmware on these.

Seagate IronWolf 8TB NAS HDD - Quiet, Fast, Reliable, and a Good Value when On-Sale.

Pros: - High Capacity. - Quiet compared with other 7200 rpm NAS Drives (HGST). - Seagate Tools provides an excellent suite of testing and drive monitoring software to test drives before Installation. - Read and Write Speed are very Good for a HDD. - 256MB Cache which is 2X the Cache on WD RED or HGST NAS Drives. - 3 Year Warranty. - Drives are HEAVY with a lot of Thermal Mass compared to other NAS Drives. - Low vibration. - Drives run Cool (compared to other similar capacity NAS Drives). - No Drive Failures in 10 months of 24/7 use. Cons: - Cost per Terrabyte is still higher than for IronWolf 4TB NAS Drives. I have 15 of these Seagate IronWolf 8TB NAS drives operating in RAID and non-RAID configurations. Some of the drives have been operationg for 10 months of 24/7 Data Server and Media Server conditions. So far, I have had no failures. I test each drive before installing it in the servers by doing a full format of the disc, doing short and long self tests in Seagate Tools, updating the firmware to the latest versions available, and generally running the drives through the entire gamut of tests in the Seagate Tools menu. The testing suite takes more than 48 hours to complete but, I would rather spend the time up front to ensure the drives are not going to fail from infant mortality and there are no bad portions of the drives before spending more than 24 hours to load data unto the drive and have it fail. So far, I am very satisfied with these Seagate IronWolf Drives compared to NAS Drives from HGST and WD. The HGST drives are noisy and I am concerned that there will be head crashes. After having the same problem with 8 of these drives, I realized that it was just a characteristic of the HGST drives. I still don't like it. The WD Red 8TB NAS drives are slower to read and write and are loud compared to the IronWolf drives. I also prefer the Seagate Tools maintenance suite over the one for WD. I watch for the sales on the IronWolf NAS drives and save 20% on the price. This adds up when ordering multiple drives. Other Comments: I have started buying the IronWolf 10TB drives. The outer case must be made from Magnesium or the drive spindles and platters must be made from some ultra-light material and different design. The 10TB drives are quite a bit lighter than the 8TB drives with the same outer dimensions. The 10TB drives are also quiet and low vibration. So far, after 3 months, the 10TB drives are performing good also. I recommend the Seagate IronWolf NAS Drives. Disclaimer: I have no relationship with Seagate or any other drive manufacturer. Every one of the drives I own have been purchased with my own money I have no incentive to give a good review other than the fact that I like the product and it performs to my expectations.

No problems after almost a year

I ordered 4 x 8TB drives in Feb 2018 and installed them in a Synology DS918+. They have been running almost continuously since then without a hint of any problem. I am running them in a Raid 10 configuration, and I do have an offline spare, but haven't needed it. I've been able to move 200,000 photos off my personal hard drive on to the NAS and edit them in PhotoShop without problems. Would recommend them to anyone.

Going Strong In My NAS

I purchased 4 of these for a Network Attached Storage device and it has been running now for 2 and a half months. All four drives are functioning properly with no issues. Speeds seem to be what I'd expect from mechanical drives of this size. Overall, the main thing you want in a NAS drive is for it to last. If I have any issues or failures I will update the review.

Fast, and error-free

I have 4 Seagate drives so far. This 8TB, a 6TB, and two 3TB drives. All of them have been excellent for my server, and the 8TB runs near constantly. The drives are a tad louder than I expected, but I only noticed then when looking for it. All of my drives have been in operation for at least 6 months, and I have seen no bad sectors, or errors.

Perfect for NAS

Went with a total of four of these drives for a QNAP 453b NAS I was building. The drives are quite fast considering and the capacity is excellent. (I decided against 10gb drives due to the cost being almost $80 more per drive.) In the NAS enclosure which is located on a shelf directly behind my my seating location, the drives do have some typical clatter, especially considering the 4 of them run together in RAID, but the enclosure itself is a plastic housing which does not reduce the noise much either. The noise level itself isn't unbearable in any way as I'm generally listening to music while I work. For anyone doing recording (vloggers, etc), I would recommend the drives be in a more sound proof enclosure or located somewhere away from the recording location to avoid picking up any background sound. Otherwise great warranty and read/write speeds. All four worked perfectly out of the box. Remember to register the drives with Seagate. (write down or photograph the drives SN before installing)

Nice addition to Drobo

I ordered these units to work with my Drobo, and so far so good with the Drobo. They are bigger than the specs my Drobo lists as acceptable on the Drobo website, but I did some trials with these two drives and all worked properly, so I put them in my mix of drives, and right now they are all working properly, and my data is sound. The Drobo did have to create a second volume, though, which is a little bit of a headache, but nothing monumental.

Good drives so far

I bought a couple of these as well as some WD Reds and HGST Deskstars and ended up keeping these and the Reds and returning the Deskstars which, along with the Reds, were slower and noisier. Both make a regular clicking sound, but are otherwise quiet, quieter than the Ironwolf's in fact, though barely (the main noise the IronWolfs make is spinning up, where they're a bit louder). As far as I can tell, the clicking is normal, though WD/HGST (same company) can't seem to make up their minds, as one person that contacted them about it was told it's normal and another was told it's not. It seems to be due to the drive redistributing lubricant every few seconds, in an attempt to increase longevity, but considering I've never had an issue with that, I wasn't willing to put up with that noise for a possible increased lifespan (though possibly not), with no ability to even adjust its frequency, especially for the cost. I kept the Reds though, because they were much cheaper than either of the others, so for that price, I was willing to deal with it. Also, the Deskstars were slow, performing similarly to the Reds, despite being 7200RPM. Had it not been for the clicking (and possibly even despite the clicking), I would have considered returning the Seagates as well, simply due to the Reds being so much cheaper, but I decided to keep them because they are a good bit faster, and so I used them to replace my main data drives to give a bit of a speed boost there, not to mention more capacity. Interestingly, the Reds don't seem to click any more, so maybe it's something that goes away after a little while. Still, the Deskstars weren't worth the extra price, even if the clicking did subside. To sum up, if you want the best bang for your buck regardless of speed or noise, the Reds are the better choice (and even with the clicking it may not be audible from a few feet away, and it may go away). If you want speed, the IronWolfs are better. Of course, even a very slow SSD would still be much faster, but you're going to be much more limited on capacity and it's going to cost a lot more, so it really just depends on what you're going for. For my setup, paying a bit more for the IronWolfs for the extra speed for just the two drives I use for my main data was worth it, whereas my other drives don't need that and so I'm much more happy saving money and using Reds. (NB: I got my Reds through Best Buy as external drives and shelled them to use them internally. If you're not comfortable doing that, and just want to buy an internal drive, the Seagates are definitely the better buy, as they're cheaper and faster and don't click. While it's not a direct comparison, and therefore these drives aren't really in direct competition with the Best Buy Reds, they effectively are, and so it would be nice to see the pricing come down some to reflect that.) Another thing I want to mention is that many people are very anti-Seagate (some might call them WD fanboys), claiming they aren't reliable. Unfortunately, many of these people are basing these claims on the old BackBlaze test, which has been shown to be a poor source of reliability information due to the vast difference in environment between how those drives were tested and how drives are used in a home computer and, more importantly, because the poor reliability of the Seagate drives was due to the 3TB drives, which were very problematic, and not only for Seagate. And, of course, others are basing their claims on what others have said or because they had one Seagate drive fail, and they believe that means all Seagates are bad. Personally, I've used numerous Seagates (probably 20+) over the course of several years, and not one has failed. I've also done extensive research and digging into the BackBlaze and other data, and Seagate and WD are pretty much even, with HGST being slightly better (though I'm not sure if the difference is statistically significant). So I will buy either, depending on the value and performance, and don't worry much about the reliability difference between them. I just do extensive testing on each drive when it's new (I run it through a series of different hard drive tests: HGST DFT, WDDLG, Seagate SeaTools, and EaseUS Partition Master). This obviously takes a few days, but if a drive handles all that without issue, I can be fairly certain it's not gong to fail anytime soon, and typically drives either fail within a few weeks or last for years (bathtub curve). I also keep everything backed up, so a failure might cause some data loss, and will be a bit of a pain, but it won't be a disaster.

Seagate Mounting

the drive works great and mounts in a standard case, but if you have a case with the guides that mount on the drive and slide into the case as I do, the mounting holes do not match. Even in mounting brackets I could only use two holes. As for the sliding mounts I had to drill additional holes and but new screws.

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