Are you looking to start or expand your NAS (Network Attached Storage) system? There’s never a better time than Prime Day, and right now, Seagate’s IronWolf Pro NAS-rated hard drive is at its best price of the year.
Why Trust Seagate IronWolf Pro Drives In Your NAS
Seagate is one of the most well-known storage brands in the business, and its IronWolf Pro enterprise-grade hard drives are no exception.
Seagate IronWolf Pro (4TB)
A great combination of pricing and performance, the Seagate IronWolf Pro is a great option for most NAS users. With a five-year warranty, three years of data recovery services included with purchase, and a workload of 550TB of data writing per year, this drive can handle just about anything you throw at it.
Designed for the abuse that comes from running 24/7/365, Seagate’s IronWolf Pro line of drives are ideal fornetwork attached storage systems. In addition to being more robust for the extra runtime, you’ll find a large 256MB cache and 7200RPM speed here, giving solid performance for a traditional hard drive.
Seagate also rates these drives for up to 550TB per year of data writing, a five-year warranty, and even three years of complimentary Data Rescue Recovery Services should the drive fail prematurely.
I’ve been running Seagate NAS-rated hard drives since 2016, and I still have one of my original 4TB drives deployed in my current NAS. Yes, that drive has been in one of my NAS systems in one form or another for nearly a decade. It has 45,013 power on hours with 21,713 start/stop count, and it’s still going strong.
4TB Is the Perfect Entry Point for a Starter NAS
As I said, I started out with 4TB drives. My first NAS was the Synology DS416j with four 4TB drives in it. That gave me 12TB of total storage and left me redundant to one drive failure.
In your NAS, a 4TB drive is a great place to start. It provides ample storage without costing an arm and a leg.
Whether you’re just getting started with network attached storage systems or are looking for a budget-friendly way to expand your existing storage, 4TB drives are a great choice.
While you could go with larger storage drives up front, at the start of a NAS it’s better to have quantity over storage size. If you only have $400 to spend on drives, for instance, then buying four of Seagate’s IronWolf Pro 4TB drives would be better than two8TB IronWolf Pro drives.
Why? Well, with four 4TB drives or two 8TB drives, you have the same total storage. However, with the way that RAID works, you’ll get 12TB of usable storage from four 4TB drives and only 8TB with two 8TB drives.
In addition to that, with four drives, you’re able to lose one drive and still retain your storage array. One in four isn’t bad to lose. However, if you only have two drives, you’d lose half of your array if one drive failed instead of just 25% of your array.
At the end of the day, it’s always better to have more drives with lower storage than fewer drives of higher storage in your NAS, so 4TB drives is a solid place to begin your storage server journey. Remember, you can always replace smaller drives with larger ones down the road if you need to.
This Prime Day Is the Best Time of the Year to Start Your NAS Build
Now that you knowwhySeagate IronWolf Pro drives are a great choice for your NAS, it’s time to pick up a few. For Prime Day, Amazon has discounted the4TB Seagate IronWolf Pro driveto $99.99. Normally between $110 to $130, this discount marks the best price of the year for Seagate’s NAS-focused hard drive, making now a fantastic time to pick one up.
However, if you’re alright going with a different brand (and refurbished condition), I’ve also had good luck runningHGST’s Ultrastar He8 8TB drives, which are the same price as Seagate’s IronWolf Pro 4TB. The HGST drives still come with a 5-year warranty, but they’re not brand-new, so be sure to only go this route if you’re OK with refurbished drives.
HGST Ultrastar He (8TB)
The HGST / WD Ultrastar 8TB Helium NAS hard drive offers 128MB of cache, spins at 7200RPM, and is data center-grade to deliver optimal performance and longevity to your network storage system.
Either way you go, Prime Day is one of the best times of the year to start your NAS build. From discounted hardware to the best pricing of the year on storage, now’s the best time to pick up new gear.
Not sure where to start with building a NAS? I’ve got a guide you’re able to follow that lays out each step of the process. From the case selection to choosing the right operating system,building your own NAS is actually easier than you might think.
