I simply crossed 250TB of storage on the house server, and whereas a bulk of that’s IronWolf Professional drives, I have been attempting out varied different merchandise during the last 18 months. Many of the new drives are both the HAT5300 and WD Reds, however the one which stood out is the Exos X20. Seagate makes among the best NAS drives, and whereas its consumer-facing IronWolf drives are greater than satisfactory for many customers, I wished to see what’s completely different with the Exos sequence.
So I bought began with the 20TB variant of the Exos drive — referred to as the Exos X20 — in the beginning of the 12 months, and it has been sensible. The three.5-inch drive makes use of a 6Gb/s SATA interface, spins at 7,200rpm, has a 550TB/12 months endurance, and the next imply time earlier than failure (MTBF) score of two.5 million hours, which is greater than what you get with the equal IronWolf Professional drives.
Like different drives that exceed 20TB storage, the Exos X20 is stuffed with helium; this makes the drive run smoother as it’s susceptible to much less friction, and makes it face up to humidity a little bit higher. Whereas the IronWolf Professional drives are aimed toward client NAS units, the Exos sequence is aimed strictly at companies, and also you get a couple of extras: Seagate’s PowerChoice and PowerBalance utilities do an excellent job optimizing energy draw when the drive is idling.
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After all, you get glorious vibrational resistance — a key requirement in a drive that is designed for twenty-four/7 use. The Exos X20 has a 256MB cache, and Seagate touts transfers of as much as 285MB/s in intensive workloads. I slotted the NAS right into a DiskStation DS182xs+, and I noticed the drive go as much as 240MB/s with sustained reads, which is on par with the most effective drives I’ve used up to now.
The one quibble is that the Exos X20 tends to be a little bit noisy; not an enormous consideration because it’s meant for information middle use, however when you’re slotting it in your house NAS, you need to know that it is marginally louder than the IronWolf Professional drives. The noise is not a lot that it turns into a difficulty, however the drive is clearly audible when in use — significantly when you’ve got the NAS in the identical room.
Exterior of that, the Exos X20 has been phenomenal. It prices about the identical because the IronWolf Professional, however you get higher general effectivity figures, and that alone makes it a straightforward suggestion. Seagate is now promoting a 24TB model of the drive referred to as the Exos X24, and when you’ve got a excessive storage requirement and desire a drive that is designed to final, that will be the best way to go. However if you wish to maximize worth proper now, the Exos X20 continues to be your best option.
This 20TB drive is a no brainer when you’re trying to construct a media middle and wish an HDD that is dependable in day by day use and constructed to final.