Seagate continues to add features to the IronWolf product family by working with partners to offer advanced NAS monitoring services with the IronWolf Health Management application. Several popular NAS companies, like Asustor and Synology, have already released firmware upgrades that support the advanced IronWolf management and reporting features. Drive balance with Rotational Vibration (RV) sensors - manages multi-bay vibration for long-term consistent performance and reliability The Seagate IronWolf Pro is ideal for small businesses leveraging NAS devices. The drive comes with an impressive 12TB of capacity. Aside from being able to store more data, the drive also comes with AgileArray technology ensuring its availability, reliability, and RAID and power usage optimization. The Pro version offers several benefits over the non-Pro version such as the support for more drive bays, a longer mean time between failures, and better optimization for multi-users. The next benchmark tests the drives under 100% read/write activity, but this time at 8k sequential throughput. The Seagate IronWolf Pro 12TB found itself in third place in iSCSI with 166,066 IOPS read and 55,250 IOPS write. In CIFS the drive hit 130,278 IOPS read and 42,668 IOPS write taking second.

Seagate's IronWolf comes in eight different capacities, and that's not counting the IronWolf Pro lineup. Seagate only uses helium with the two highest capacities, while the 6TB to 12TB models are the only drives with a 7,200-RPM spindle speed. Those models also have the best UBER (uncorrectable bit error) rating. Rotational vibration (RV) sensors are the biggest dividing line for the IronWolf series. The 3TB, 2TB, and 1TB drives don't come with RV sensors, which can hamper performance in a large array.Seagate has expanded its Guardian Series of HDDs with even higher capacity version. On the NAS front, Seagate has taken both its IronWolf and IronWolf Pro and expanded the capacity up to 12TB per drive. The IronWolf Pro is designed specifically for use in NAS devices and is aimed toward creative professionals, SOHO, and SME markets. While both drives share many of the same features, the Pro version supports up to 16 drive bays, has a higher mean time between failures (1.2 million hours), has rotational vibration sensors on all capacities, and is better optimized for multi-users (300TB/year).

AgileArray also features optimized power management that provides a faster response time while also reducing power consumption. Pricing, Warranty & Endurance Average latency of 8k 70/30 had the same placing for the Seagate drives with the Pro finishing with 403.45ms iSCSI and 1,659.64ms CIFSWe're focusing on the 12TB IronWolf, but the 10TB model tags along for the review. Both share the same performance specifications. The four high-capacity 7,200-RPM models provide 210 MB/s of throughput. The remaining four drives deliver 180 MB/s of throughput due to their 5,400-RPM spindle speeds. Features

In the following section of this review, we will show the 12TB Seagate IronWol Pro’s performance in both iSCSI and CIFS configurations. Seagate supplied StorageReview with eight samples of their new NAS HDDs, which we configured in RAID6. Recovery. In the event of failure, rely on a secure environment for data recovery with Seagate® Rescue Data Recovery Service (2-year service included with IronWolf Pro). RAID performance optimized - maximizes responsiveness and uptime with NAS-aware Error Recovery ControlIronWolf Health Management in compatible NAS systems continuously helps to safeguard the health of your data Seagate designed its AgileArray technology to provide a better user experience. Here's how the company describes the feature set: In 4k average latency, the IronWolf Pro hit 392.41ms read and 416.22ms write putting it in first and second place. In CIFS we see the same placement with 805.65ms read and 426.74ms write.

Seagate's AgileArray technology is a suite of features designed to provide a better user experience. Here's how the company describes the features: With standard deviation, the IronWolf Pro came in second on iSCSI with 406.74ms read and 1,867.41ms. With CIFS, the Pro drive came in second in reads with 620.38ms and third in writes with 1,903.27ms. Our Enterprise Synthetic Workload Analysis includes four profiles based on real-world tasks. These profiles have been developed to make it easier to compare to our past benchmarks, as well as widely-published values such as max 4K read and write speed and 8K 70/30, which is commonly used for enterprise drives. Drive balance with Rotational Vibration (RV) sensors manages multi-bay vibration for long-term consistent performance and reliability In our throughput test measuring 4K random performance the Seagate IronWolf Pro landed second overall in iSCSI performance with 651 IOPS read (more or less tied with the non-Pro version’s 652 IOPS) and 631 IOPS write. For CIFS the Pro drive score first in reads with 317 IOPS and second in writes with 611 IOPS.

From the Manufacturer

Our next test shifts focus from a pure 8k sequential 100% read/write scenario to a mixed 8k 70/30 workload, where we will show how performance scales in a setting from 2T/2Q up to 16T/16Q. The two IronWolf drives did well competing for the top spot in iSCSI with the non-Pro pushing past the Pro by the end, 634 IOPS to 648 IOPS. CIFS was similar only the two drives were fighting for last place with the non-Pro barely taking it, 150 IOPS to 153 IOPS.