WD 20TB Elements Desktop External Hard Drive - USB 3.0, Black

Product Information

If you want 20TB drives in an array, then this is what to expect. Western Digital UltraStar DC HC560 has the same workload numbers, so the alternatives come with the same caveat. Why in the UK the HC560 is cheaper than the WD Gold is curious, and the Red Pro is the most expensive in the UK of all drives. Therefore, where an SSD only considers writes in its TBW, this workload includes reads in addition to writes as part of the rate, disturbingly. Doing the same calculations that we did for the IronWolf Pro, taking the 2750TB limit over five years and dividing that by the capacity, we end up with total bytes transferred of 137.5 TB per TB of drive capacity. Another difference is that the EXOS 20TB comes in both SATA and SAS connections, whereas the IronWolf Pro is exclusively SATA.

WD 20TB Elements Desktop External Hard Drive - USB 3.0, Black

The SATA EXOS comes either with Standard or SED FastFormat, and the SAS model adds SED-FIPS to those options. I found a hard drive to be very efficient, and for some reason works faster than my 1 TB of the same maker and brand. It is also quieter than the 1 TB that my system came with. In fact the fan on my DVR makes more noise than a hard drive does and I have a quiet fan. That converts into a warranty that lasts for five years with a TBW of 2,750TB, compared with the 1,500TBW of the IronWolf Pro.CrystalDiskMark: 289.07MBps (read); 295.75MBps (write) Atto: 281.32MBps (read, 256MB);275.27MBps (write, 256MB) CrystalDiskMark: 286.8MBps (read); 279.3MBps (write) Atto: 277.89MBps (read, 256MB); 274.68MBps (write, 256MB) The previous 18TB IronWolf Pro could read and write sequentially at about 260MB/s, and the 20TB achieved more than 285MB/s in most tests. That’s nearly a 10% improvement, almost the same margin as the increase in capacity. If you are looking to get a simple network storage solution for your home, then this is one of the great options available on the market. It is specifically designed for people who are just getting started with network storage and don’t want to mess around with all the options and settings you get on a full-fledged NAS drive. It comes in a trayless design that offers a simple way of HDD installation. Just pull out the lever to insert or withdraw the HDDs. Once you set up the device, you can easily switch between RAID modes, connect the cable, and turn on the power to enjoy the massive capability and outstanding performance of the Mobius.

TechRadar Seagate IronWolf Pro 20TB review | TechRadar

Oddly, while idle, the 20TB pulls a little more power than the 18TB, 5.5W from 5.2W, but critically when it is running, it uses less power. Down from 8W on the 18TB to 7.7W on the 20TB, its standby power level is also less.

On paper, 20 TB sound like a fantastic innovation. Using just 20 TB drives, you could have 100 TB of available storage space with just six drives in your Unraid server. But Linus, from the Linus Tech Tips YouTube channel, has a compelling argument against increasing the size of hard drives from where they currently are. There is one aspect to the IronWolf Pro 20TB that concerns us, and it’s the 300TB per year workload definition. The transfer time of this drive depends on your home network setup. The speed isn’t as fast as an external drive connected to a computer, but you get an added benefit to access your files from any device on your network. Where the IronWolf Pro 20TB offered an MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) is 1.2 million hours, and the yearly workload is 300TB. The EXOS 20TB exceeds those levels with a 2.5-million-hour MTBF rating and 550TB annual workload. Alongside its IronWolf Pro, Seagate also makes a 20TB EXOS design that we’ll be covering shortly, aimed at the same slice of the Enterprise market that the UltraStar DC HC560 was created.

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If you are reading this review and are already bored with the numbers, we apologise in advance. Because this drive is all about the numbers, the good, bad and ugly. The maximum power the EXOS can consume 9.4W on SATA and 9.8W on SAS, but the typical demands are 6.4W and 6.8W, less than the average 7.7W that the IronWolf requires.

The veracity of massive capacity

Talking about the outside of the Seagate IronWolf Pro 20TB is mainly irrelevant. Externally, it appears to be identical to every other Seagate IronWolf drive in the 3.5-inch form factor.