Seagate IronWolf 4TB NAS Internal Hard Drive Review: A Reliable Storage Solution?

I have two of these that I use in my desktop PC for long-term storage. So far, neither have failed, nor shown any signs that they are going to. They are dead reliable. They're a bit slower than desktop hard drives, but that is to be expected as these are intended to be NAS drives. Overall, if you want slow storage, these work great.

I held off on submitting a review until I had a chance to put some time and usage on this hard drive. I ordered 3 of IronWolf 4TB hard drives in January 2021 and use them in a RAID 5 configuration on an Asustor AS4004T NAS. They have been in use for about 13 months. It is used in a home office setting with me as the sole user. I also use the Asustor Surveillance Center app to record 24/7 security camera footage to these hard drives. After 13 months of use, the drives have performed with no issues. The drives run quiet and cool, but keep in mind that this is due to the disks only spinning at 5900 RPM. Consequently, you'll need to manage your expectations on the read and write speeds to these disks, even if they are in a RAID configuration. I did check the serial numbers on the drives that I received on the Seagate website to confirm if these drives are covered by Seagate, and my drives had warranty periods as follows: Drive #1, Date of Manufacture: 3DEC2020; Warranty valid until 28MAR2024 Drive #2: Date of Manufacture: 2DEC2020; Warranty valid until 28MAR2024 Drive #3: Date of Manufacture: 2DEC2020; Warranty valid until 28MAR2024 Considering that I bought these drives in January 2021, these drives are practically fresh off the manufacturing line and haven't stayed in Amazon's inventory very long. However, those warranty periods don't appear to be in line with Seagate's claim of a 5-year warranty for these drives. Just wanted to point this out for those who are expecting a 5-year warranty on this particular model. Overall, there have been no issues with these drives. Expectations just need to be managed, considering that these disks only spin at 5900 RPM. Otherwise, they have performed reliably under the workload conditions I described.

I used these in a mirror raid array for multimedia storage. Works great, been a few years and no failures.

I own a 4 drive QNAP NAS and typically need to replace a drive about once a year. I only use the 4TB IronWolf drives and in general, have had no issues. I can hot swap on my NAS, so installation is a breeze. My latest purchase was to replace a 4.3 year old IronWolf drive, which just began to show bad sectors. My experience has been that the life of these drives has been from 2 to 5 years running 24/7 on a NAS. I noted Fresh Stock in my headline since it's important for warranty. Unlike typical warranties which are based on purchase date, Seagate warranties are based on manufacture date which I believe is typically set for about 3 years and 3 months for this drive. This purchase and my last from Amazon both showed warranty dates that were just under the 3 years and 3 months. I've previously purchased drives from another vendor and the warranties were only about 2 1/2 years remaining. I did have one of those drives go bad just before the 2 1/2 years were up, so was able to get a replacement. For warranty, I had to send back the defective drive and was sent a re-certified drive. Process is not quick, so I ended up purchasing a replacement first and kept the re-certified drive on the shelf ready for replacement. For some, returning the defective drive may not be a viable option depending on the data stored on it and whether or not you can actually get the drive wiped. Some may also be concerned with using a re-certified replacement drive, but that likely depends on how you're using. In my Raid 5 configuration, it's not an issue for one drive to go bad as long as I quickly get it replaced.

I needed a new archive drive for my machine as the current one was reaching 11 years. As a western digital green drive, anyone in IT can tell you thats an amazing feat for the little guy. None the less I decided to swap for a new seagate drive as they had been pretty reliable in my sever setting for raid setups. The drive operates just as expected if not a bit slower than the old one but not abnormally slow for a massive drive at 5.9k rpm and only 64 mb or cache. The issue is its loud, concerningly loud. It sounds like the head is hitting the spindle sometimes when it wakes up. Pros: 1. large capacity for a very good price 2. CRM style drive with traditional memory cells instead of shingled cells (just know that shingled media is slow) Cons: 1. only 5900rpm 2. only 64 MB of cache 3. loud on wake up Conclusion: Though slower drives can mechanically last longer, often damaged is caused by the head rather than the spindle. This leads to the noise issue which sounds like the head is crashing against the drive on wake up. Despite these noises the drive operates fine and reports no errors. I can only assume this is just how large seagate drives act. The final thing that makes this hard to recommend is its tiny 64 MB of cache, cache can speed up reads and writes to drives and the bigger the drive the bigger the cache you want to help buffer that reaction time of the mechanical parts of the drive. I cant suggest this drive to anyone as an archive... with noise issues, and cut down cache... it just sets it over the top. A lot of us dont want to be concerned about performance or longevity as soon as we open up a new drive and back up to it. Try and find something else if you can.

Tudo como esperado, funcionando bem, sem problemas.... já instalado no computador e funcionando normalmente, bem embalado, entrega bem antes do tempo previsto.

disco duro rápido al momento de transferir archivos pesados y confiable, un poco ruidoso cuando escribe y lee.