The best drives for NAS | April 2021

Do you have to store a large amount of data? You just have to buy a NAS, devices designed to store huge amounts of data and make them available 24 hours a day on the network; such data is saved on hard disks specially developed for continuous use. In NAS (acronym for Network Attached Storage), it is not advisable to insert traditional HDDs, in fact, units that can withstand intense workloads (video surveillance, continuous access to data, backups, RAID, etc ...) are needed.

This is the main difference between traditional HDDs and NAS disks: the latter are designed for continuous operation, are usually slower, but develop less heat and have more cache memory to speed up file operations.

Another aspect to keep in mind are the data storage technologies: SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording) and CMR (Conventional Magnetic Recording). The former is used on traditional HDDs as it allows you to store more data on disk, however it is not suitable for the intensive write operations of NAS. The latter is used on NAS HDDs, as it offers superior write performance under heavy loads.

We have compiled a guide to the best NAS drives, products suitable for both individuals and small and medium-sized businesses, and have classified them in ascending price order.

Best NAS drives

Seagate BarraCuda Western Digital Red Plus Toshiba N300 Western Digital SA500 Seagate IronWolf Seagate IronWolf Pro

Seagate BarraCuda

Although the BarraCuda series is intended for traditional PCs, the 1 TB (and 500 GB) model is a disk with CMR storage technology; it's really weird, but for the private, it's all runny grease. If you are looking for an entry-level drive for your multimedia files, this drive is perfect for you.

Western Digital Red Plus

If you are looking for a low priced NAS drive with a decent amount of memory, Western Digital's 3TB Red Plus model is an interesting product. The drive is 3.5-inch, costs around 100 euros and boasts a 64 MB cache; it is a HDD that we recommend to individuals who want an inexpensive drive to save personal files.

Toshiba N300

Toshiba N300 is a solid and good performance NAS HDD. We offer you the 6 TB cut in the 3.5 inch format, ideal for NAS from 1 to 8 bay. The product has 128 MB of cache and ensures a data transfer speed of approximately 204 MB / s. Consumption stood at 9.6 W (when in operation) and 5.2 W at idle. Toshiba declares a noise level of 30 dB; is a product we recommend to micro businesses.

Western Digital SA500

Usually, Magnetic disks are recommended due to their value for money. That said, not everyone tolerates their loudness and for those who keep their NAS in the office, this is a nightmare. If you want to solve this problem, you should buy an SSD. We recommend WD's SA500 SATA model.

Seagate IronWolf

Seagate IronWolf is a high-end NAS hard drive that we recommend for micro and small businesses. We offer you the 10 TB cut in the 3.5 inch format. The product boasts 256MB of cache and achieves a data transfer rate of approximately 210MB / s. The unit has a maximum consumption of 7.8 W, 5 W in idle and 0.8 W in suspension. The warranty is three years.

Seagate IronWolf Pro

We conclude our guide to '' purchase with Seagate IronWolf Pro, a class of products suitable even for medium-sized businesses. This range boasts a 5-year warranty, plus the manufacturer provides a team of data recovery experts in the event of sudden failures (data recovery success rate is 90%, according to the company).

The 16 TB model, in the 3.5-inch format, supports a workload of 300 TB / year and has a maximum consumption of 7.6 W, 5 W at idle and 1 W in suspension. Platters spin at 7200 RPM (maximum noise level is 32 dB), data transfer speed reaches 255 MB / s and cache is 256 MB. This disk can be accommodated in NAS up to 24 bays (bays).