INTRODUCTION

   Whenever the majority of people i know spends money to get a higher capacity internal HDD it's either to have more room for the installation of game titles (with many PC and console games even surpassing the 30/40GB mark that's not surprising), for backup purposes and/or to store their media (image/audio/video) libraries. However there are also people who require higher capacities for other uses whether that's to store work related data, host server/cloud data or even to use as recording media for IP cameras. For example in our lab we have a NAS server running 24/7 which is used as a email server, download server and is also currently connected to 4 IP cameras so as you can all understand using reliable and high storage capacity drives is of the outmost importance. A few months ago Seagate send us their Enterprise NAS HDD 8TB SATA III model which proved to be more than what we had hoped but since it was aimed towards enterprise use (and thus somewhat expensive) we decided to also check their regular NAS HDD 8TB SATA III models.

   Founded in 1979, Seagate is the leading provider of hard drives and storage solutions. From the videos, music and documents we share with friends and family on social networks, to servers that form the backbone of enterprise data centers and cloud-based computing, to desktop and notebook computers that fuel our personal productivity, Seagate products help more people store, share and protect their valuable digital content. Seagate offers the industry’s broadest portfolio of hard disk drives, solid-state drives and solid-state hybrid drives. In addition, the company offers an extensive line of retail storage products for consumers and small businesses, along with data-recovery services for any brand of hard drive and digital media type. Seagate employs more than 50,000 people around the world.

   If we compare the Enterprise NAS HDD 8TB model to the NAS HDD 8TB model we will see that their specifications sheet is identical in some areas and quite a bit different in others. For example both drives feature a rotational speed of 7200RPM with 256MB of cache and several identical technologies such as NAS-optimized firmware for balanced reads and writes, advanced power management and error recovery controls. The similarities however end there since the Enterprise NAS HDD scores a MTBF (Meantime Between Failures) of up to 1.2 million hours with a 180TB/year WRL (Workload Rate Limit) and is covered by a 5 year warranty as opposed to the 1 million hours MTBF, 300TB/year WRL and 3 year warranty of the NAS HDD 8TB (Seagate offers the optional rescue recovery service for both drives for the duration of the warranty). So aside its specifications and features how does the latest NAS HDD 8TB by our friends over at Seagate perform?