CONCLUSION

    My last encounter with a Seagate drive was back in 2019 when they had released their very first 16TB models and so jumping from that to 30TB is a first for me. Yes, HDD performance hasn't really changed since then as evident from my charts (which is why I’ll keep including the same ones I had in 2019) but since we're entering the era of massive capacities I decided to also add extra tests for more demanding audiences, more specifically 32GB tests using the latest version of ATTO (v5.00.2) and 64GB tests using the latest version of Crystal Disk Mark (v9.0.1). Now I don't have every single HDD I've reviewed to date in the lab, so I just benchmarked the ones I've kept. With all of these out of the way it's clear that the Exos M 30TB model by Seagate is among their fastest models to date, if not the fastest one. Not only did it reach over 290MB/s during my tests it also produced the 3rd fastest seek times behind the Exos X16 and Enterprise Capacity 3.5 V6 models again by Seagate. That's not all however since I also recorded the least noise from all the drives in my charts while testing the Exos M and even though that's not a game changer it's always nice to see improvements across the board (which HAMR obviously offers).

    With a retail price set at USD599.99 inside the USA (Amazon.com) and at 624.17Euros inside the EU (Amazon.de) it’s very easy to see why HDDs offer a much higher capacity/cost ratio compared to SSDs. Granted, performance is not even close when comparing M.2 NVMe SSDs to a SATA III HDD but when capacity is the primary concern the latter has the lead (just for the record, the Exos M 30TB costs roughly the same as an 8TB Gen4 M.2 NVMe SSD). Overall, I can’t think of a single bad thing to say about the Exos M 30TB enterprise-grade HDD by Seagate. So far HAMR via their Mozaic 3+ technology pans out and since it does offer the highest capacities currently the Exos M 3+ 30TB deserves the Platinum Award.

 PROS

- Impressive Build Quality / Durability (2.5 Million Hours MTBF)
- Top Of The Charts Performance (SATA III)
- Technologies Used (Mozaic 3+ / PowerChoice / PowerBalance)
- 512MB Cache
- Massive 30TB Capacity (Up To 36TB Currently)
- Temperatures / Noise Levels / Power Consumption
- 5 Year Limited Warranty

CONS

- Price (For Some)