Seagate Announces Helium-based 16 TB Exos and IronWolf Hard Drives
by Ganesh T S on June 4, 2019 8:01 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
- Seagate
- HDDs
- Helium HDD
- IronWolf
- Exos
- IronWolf Pro
Seagate is launching their 16 TB CMR (conventional magnetic recording) helium drives today under two product lines - the Exos X for datacenter usage, and the IronWolf / IronWolf Pro for NAS units. The company has been actively shipping the Exos X drives to hyperscale customers, and today's launch is geared more towards the retail market. Similar to the currently available 14TB drives from Seagate, the new 16TB variants also use TDMR (two-dimensional magnetic recording) technology for the heads
The Exos X16 is a 3.5" 7200 RPM drive with SED (self-encrypting drive) options. It is currently the leading capacity point available across all HDD vendors, but, not the first 16 TB drive publicly announced - that credit goes to Toshiba's MG08 series launched in January 2019. Similar to Toshiba's MG08 series, the Seagate 16TB drives also use nine platters to achieve the capacity point.
Seagate claims that the new Exos X16 delivers 33% additional storage per rack compared to the 12 TB variants - thereby reducing the TCO for datacenter operators. The Exos X series is available in both SATA 6Gbps and SAS 12Gbps versions.
The 16 TB drives are also being made available under the IronWolf and IronWolf Pro branding - these drives carry a 300TB/yr workload rating, and deliver benefits typically required in SOHO / SMB NAS systems.
The Exos X16 16TB HDD SATA model (ST16000NM001G) has an MSRP of $629 and is available for purchase today. The dual-port SAS model (ST16000NM002G) is priced at $639. The detailed specifications of the various Exos X16 variants are reproduced in the table below.
The IronWolf Pro (ST16000NE000) has a MSRP of $665 and the IronWolf (ST16000VN001) is priced at $610. These models come with the Rescue Data Recovery Service. The detailed specifications are presented in the table below. The IronWolf 16TB drive is rated for 600K load/unload cycles. The corresponding figure for Exos X16 and the IronWolf Pro were not provided.
Seagate might not be the first to publicly announce a 16TB HDD. However, there is no sign of the previously announced Toshiba MG08 series in the retail market. Seagate's 16TB drives are available for purchase today.
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azfacea - Tuesday, June 4, 2019 - link
hard drives are dead. the cost per GB is rising as they lose volume.vanilla_gorilla - Tuesday, June 4, 2019 - link
Is it rising? The 16TB IronWolf is $38/GB. Seems like it's come down slightly from a year or two ago.nathanddrews - Tuesday, June 4, 2019 - link
I've added a couple 10TB WD Reds (external shucks) to my server for $16/TB. The trick is buying at the right time. Just wait, the external 16TB drives will also drop under $200 soon enough.Death666Angel - Tuesday, June 4, 2019 - link
HDD prices always seem like a reverse Gauß distribution, where somewhere in the middle of the capacity range (currently 5 to 6TB) is the lowest price/TB and then at either ends (500GB and 16TB or something) it's the highest. Apart from the flooding that happened some years back, I have not seen them reverse in pricing/TB on the scale of a few months. Sure, when you compare a black friday sale with prices immediately afterward, there might be a price hike. But that's not how you compare things.deil - Tuesday, June 4, 2019 - link
HDD's are dead for most users. Not everybody wants to keep big NAS.the only place where HDD still is unrivalled is cheap NAS & cold storage.
nands die way to fast without power to just plug out and keep years of your images away.
Byte - Tuesday, June 4, 2019 - link
More like i don't want to keep ticking time bombs around to lose my 16tb of data.azazel1024 - Wednesday, June 5, 2019 - link
Hard drives will lose data also. Eventually. An SSD used for bulk storage and not heavily worn is going to keep data for years if stored at room temperature. The minimum JDEC spec IIRC, for TLC is around 9 months data retention at room temperature (20C) at maximum P/E cycles. A nearly new drive with only a few dozen P/E cycles on it at room temperature is likely to retain the data for a few years. Kept at 10C and fairly new and it could be more than a decade. MLC lasts even longer.It is when heavily used and kept in a warm environment that problems occur when not used/cells refreshed. Keep it in a hot car and what was months to years of integrity on the data and at 60C it might be a few weeks. In the desert in a hot car, it might just be a week or two at 70C.
vanilla_gorilla - Tuesday, June 4, 2019 - link
I'm sure there are times where you can find better deals, so I just try to use standard MSRP pricing when comparing between generations. I think I paid closer to $50/TB for my 12TB IronWolf.(And yes, the original comment meant per TB not per GB)
Beaver M. - Wednesday, June 5, 2019 - link
16 TB under $200 soon enough?Maybe in 10 to 15 years.
I tried to wait a long time, but I had to buy a 12 TB now for $450. I really tried not to, but I had to.
And I waited 7+ years for the prices to come down.
But 12 TB was the only one that made more or less sense in terms of price and capacity. Now I already notice hat 12 TB wasnt enough and I will have to get a 14 or 16 TB one in the next years. Exactly what I wanted to avoid.
The prices are completely out of whack since the "flood". And many have analyzed this and came to the conclusion that the flood wasnt nearly as bad as claimed for HDD manufacturers and instead its a cartel that started back then. Toshiba made a little dent in it, but then obviously joined in after a short time, when they realized how it works.
The problem is nobody can prove it, since it works without documents or words shared between them. They simply know whats best for them and act like it seemingly in a classic conspiracy. But they never talk to each other. They just know.
Many countries have investigated it, since its really obvious. But they just couldnt do much.
mukiex - Tuesday, June 4, 2019 - link
I think you mean $38/TB?Anyhoo, as it stands 3.8¢ per GB is still 1/8th the price of the cheapest SSD. Mind you, that number was 1/10th, and even 1/20th, not so long ago, so SSD is actually catching up, but it has some ways to go.