Although smaller form-factor drives and standards are becoming more commonplace in a variety of systems, there is still a large audience for traditional, 3.5-inch drives, especially when they have a lot of storage space. Joining the likes of Western Digital’s Ultrastar range, Seagate’s new Barracuda and IronWolf drives certainly offer that, with as much as 12TB of space. There are also variants of each at 10TB, 8TB, 6TB, 4TB and 2TB capacities, while standard IronWolf NAS drives are available in 3TB and 1TB capacities as well.
The Barracuda Pro range is aimed at internal system builders. Utilizing the SATA interface, it offers sustained write speeds up to 250MBps and comes with a 256MB cache. Its maximum power draw during operation is 7.8 Watts. The warranty lasts for five years, regardless of the capacity you opt for.
In comparison, the NAS targeted IronWolf range has a sustained transfer rate of 210MBps, though it comes with the same internal cache and power requirements. It can however work in a NAS system with up to seven of its fellow drives, so allows for expansive attached storage if needed.
Its counterpart, the IronWolf Pro range, has slightly bolstered performance with a sustained transfer rate of 250MBps on the largest capacities. It’s also slightly more reliable, with a 20 percent increase in its mean time between failure hours. Its warranty is longer too, with five years rather than the three that the standard IronWolf drives come with.
Prices for these drives are $390 for the IronWolf 12TB model, $440 for the 12TB IronWolf Pro, and $430 for the Barracuda Pro 12TB model. These drives are now available and shipping out to customers worldwide, so if you need a new, large-scale storage drive for your single PC or your NAS enclosure(s), these new Seagate options might not be a bad bet.
They certainly keep Seagate at the forefront of consumer storage. When it launched its 10TB Barracuda drives in 2016, they were the largest yet launched at the time.
