Western Digital launched the world's first 14TB hard drive last week, but it is aimed squarely at the enterprise market. Seagate on the other hand, just announced 12TB hard drives for desktop PCs and Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices.
Three new 12TB capacity drives were announced, carrying the names BarraCuda Pro, IronWolf, and IronWolf Pro.
The BarraCuda Pro is aimed at desktop PC users, and in particular digital creatives who work with lots of very large files. The 3.5-inch drive spins at 7,200rpm, is capable of 300TB/year workloads. and offers sustained data transfer rates of up to 250MB/s using a 6GB/s SATA connection. It ships with a five-year limited warranty and two-year protection against mechanical, accidental, or natural disaster through the included Seagate Rescue Data Recovery service.
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The IronWolf drives are for home and small business NAS (IronWolf) and commercial and enterprise NAS (IronWolf Pro). The main difference between the two being IronWolf drives only carry a three year warranty and are rated for 180TB/year workloads. IronWolf Pro drives have a five year warranty and 300TB/year workload rating just like the 12TB BarraCuda Pro.
Many of the major hard drive companies have split their storage line-up into desktop and NAS categories, and with good reason. The way in which the drives function differs in a PC and NAS. A NAS is also meant to keep data secure long-term, so additional protection is useful. Both the IronWolf and IronWolf Pro ship with AgileArray and IronWolf Health Management (HM) to keep the drives and the data stored on them secure and reliable. Popular NAS brands including Synology, QNAP, and Asustor offer compatibility with IHM out the box.
Although Seagate isn't sharing prices, Amazon lists the 12TB BarraCuda Pro for $525 with the drive available from October 13. The existing 8TB drive is $325 and the 10TB drive is $425. I suspect those prices will fall once the 12TB drives are more readily available. The 12TB IronWolf is listed at $487, and the IronWolf Pro at $530.