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Seagate Launches 8 TB NAS HDD

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Seagate expanded its NAS HDD product line with a new 8 terabyte model today. The new drive is a drop in replacement for existing 3.5 inch products that allow a wide range of systems to store more data in less space. This follows several other Seagate 8 TB announcements in 2015 including the Enterprise NAS HDD, the NAS HDD's higher performing counterpart in the lineup.

“Our customers are finding themselves under more pressure than ever as the volume of data they need to deal with continues to increase dramatically,” said David Chiang, general manager of business division, QNAP Systems, Inc. “QNAP is focused on delivering scalable and reliable NAS solutions to address these needs, giving users the confidence that their information is secure and available. The new Seagate NAS HDD 8TB will offer professionals a huge capacity with which to easily manage this growing amount of data.”

The NAS 8TB HDD uses 5,900 RPM platters and are optimized for tower network attached storage systems from one to eight drive bays. The full feature list includes:

1, 2, 3, 4, 6, and 8 TB capacitiesSuitability for 1- to 8-bay enclosures180TB/year Workload Rate Limit (WRL)—the largest WRL for this category of NAS drive, offering businesses peace of mind that heavy workloads can be easily managedMTBF of 1M hour—demonstrating mature robustness of the drive familyThree-Year Limited Warranty—peace of mind from a reliable NAS HDDOne-of-kind optional three-year Rescue Data Recovery service to protect against potential data loss

The NAS-specific drives have already shipped to select customers, and Seagate said wide-scale availability will come at the end of the quarter (March).

Chris Ramseyer is a Contributing Editor for Tom's Hardware, covering Storage. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. Follow Tom's Hardware on Twitter, Facebook and Google+.

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Chris Ramseyer
Chris Ramseyer
Chris Ramseyer is a Contributing Editor for Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews consumer storage.
13 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Urzu1000
    I really like Seagate, but their HDDs are hit or miss with reliability. A 1TB or a 4TB drive might be a solid performer, but a 3TB drive might have a very high failure rate.

    I would <i>assume</i> it's reliable because it's being offered as a NAS solution, but I will still wait to see some failure rates on this particular model before pulling the trigger on a few of these.
    Reply
  • Amdlova
    Want a good HDD to write alot of things on same time. Get the WD Purple. I can torrent about 48 same time and extract 9gb iso with no problems. no error 40 days power on. (purple its like red, low power accept bad powers suppy and have 3 years worldwide guarantee...
    Reply
  • 2Be_or_Not2Be
    The article says the drive is "optimized for tower network attached storage systems". I wonder if the drive is meant to be vertically mounted, horizontally mounted, or if the orientation matters for rotational stability.
    Reply
  • Nintendork
    Right now the 6TB Western Digital Black is hands down the best drive for consumer.
    Reply
  • BadBoyGreek
    In the last 18 months, I've had 3 Seagate drives fail on me, including a replacement I was sent. They were all drives I had purchased around the time that Seagate had those mass failures and each of them lasted under 3 years. By contrast, Western Digital drives I purchased even close to 10 years ago are still going strong.

    My NAS right now houses 4 TB WD Red drives and they perform exceptionally well. They're the only drives I'll use in my NAS. Sure they cost more, but well worth it.
    Reply
  • Effex
    I'll never trust Seagate. I am still awaiting the HGST 8TB enterprise drive prices to come down or for WD to release 8TB Reds or Red Pros. You simply cannot go wrong with those drives regardless of capacity.
    Reply
  • vaughn2k
    I still have a 640gb WD Caviar Black Drive bought 7 years ago, now installed on an old Dell Optiplex 780, and using it as my simulation computer. at that same time, I have 3pieces 500gb Seagate, and they're dead now.. :D :D :D
    Reply
  • alidan
    I really like Seagate, but their HDDs are hit or miss with reliability. A 1TB or a 4TB drive might be a solid performer, but a 3TB drive might have a very high failure rate.

    I would <i>assume</i> it's reliable because it's being offered as a NAS solution, but I will still wait to see some failure rates on this particular model before pulling the trigger on a few of these.

    i find that its usualy an industry wide "these drive sizes have higher failure rates" than just seagate, but last time i really looked into it was the 2 1.5 tb drives i got, which apparently that size everyone sucked at, but i had in total 6 drive from 3 failures both originally bought and than one replacement, from seagate...

    those are the only drives in i want to say nearing 20 years of using a computer that have failed me. (2 click of death, one vibrated itself to death) but i can hear horror stories from damn near every vender and when i look at it by the numbers, i just got unlucky.

    Reply
  • Tanyac
    In 2013 I purchased 6 x 3TB Baracuda drives. It was unknown to me at that time that they had a 40% failure rate, as quoted on some review/test sites. I've experienced something different. 5 of the 6 drives have failed in less than a year. The last one, I'm sure, must be living on borrowed time.

    The drives always seem to suffer a similar fate - LBA 0 - or Size 0 - The drive is not recognized by the BIOS and/or hangs on boot up, rather than mechanical failure that often occurs with WD drives. Typically there is a warning before the drives fail - such as extended boot times or the drop ready whilst the system is operational. My last drive seemed the have a massive stroke, dying almost instantly, resulting in a loss of around 1.5TB of data.

    Data recovery centers seem to exploit the fact that we treasure our data, and feel guilty about not having done regular backups by charging exorbitant rates to recover the data. The work required for a LBA-0 failure (firmware corruption), is almost trivial, yet I was quoted as much as $2,600 AUD to get back that data. Indeed, you can buy the hardware for reocvering drives for $1000, so you could recover that cost in one event. Perhaps I should come out of retirement and get into disk recovery :)

    4 of the 5 drives were covered by Warranty, which used to be 3 years, but Seagate have acknowledged that their manufacturing standards and quality of parts have declined (purely a business decision for the sake of profit), and have dropped that to 2 years. The 4TB drives likewise have dropped from 5 years to 3 years in recognition of the decline in reliability. You can still buy a 4TB with 5 years if you are lucky, because the warranty is based on the date of manufacture.

    How anyone can call 3 years "Peace of mind" baffles me.

    I have IDE drives from 2002 here still running. I have some 500GB drives from 2009 still running. Only drives from the key quality drop points which "magically" appear to be every other year (from observation), seem to have short life spans.

    But, I must be fair. I contacted Seagate about the 5th drive which was out of Warranty, and they bent over backwards to help me out. Extended the warranty and offered to cover shipping costs. Now that's something you don't see everyday, and IMHO, a credit to their commitment to customers.
    Reply
  • Aslan7
    “Our customers are finding themselves under more pressure than ever as the volume of data they need to deal with continues to increase dramatically,” said David Chiang, general manager of business division, QNAP Systems, Inc.

    4King p0rn!
    Reply