Can I use a NAS drive as a regular hard drive?

[Lee James]

Please could someone advise me?

For a while now I've been desperately low on hard drive space and have been patiently waiting for 8tb drives to get cheap enough.

I've now found a Seagate drive which seems the right price but it's a NAS drive. I really have no idea what "NAS" means, and couldn't understand the Wikipedia article on it. (I'm pretty dumb when it comes to hard drives.)

So… Can I just stick this drive in my PC and use it as a normal hard drive? Is it a good choice? Will it be slower than the drives I'm used to? (My 2 main data drives at the moment are the Seagate ST4000DM000 and Seagate ST32000542AS - I also use an SSD for Windows.)

I do a lot of video and sound editing, so it needs to be able to accommodate that, also quietness is really important - my new PC was specifically built with silence in mind, after my old machine which sounded like a lawnmower under my desk!

(By the way, if anyone is wondering why my new drive *has* to be 8tb, it's because I invented my own policy of always doubling the size of every new hard drive I buy - that way I can leave the last 3 drives in my PC as backups and their total capacity will be always be exactly 88% the size of the new drive.)

 

[seagate_surfer]

Hi, Lee. For starters, yes you could plug just about any type of specific-use optimized drive in your system and as long as your interfaces and minimum requirements line up, it will technically work. A NAS drive connects in the same way a standard desktop drive would. Why it is branded as a NAS drive is because it was engineered with use in NAS enclosures in mind. A lot of this has to do with the firmware that is used on the drive. A NAS drive is designed to be up and running 24/7, so its priorities include constantly being ready to go at a moment's notice, like in a cloud storage environment where you might have a number of users who want to access any information held on the drive at any given time, and not have to wait a long time for access.

NAS drives, as mentioned, are rated for 24x7 use, and also designed to push bigger workloads year round. For example, a standard Seagate BarraCuda drive is rated to handle 55TB of data a year, whereas a standard Seagate IronWolf (NAS) drive is rated to handle 180TB a year, bump up to the IronWolf Pro, and that is rated for 300TB per year. So how hard the drive is going to work does come into play as well. There is also the warranty to consider. A standard BarraCuda drive comes with a 2-year warranty, whereas a standard IronWolf drive comes with a 3 year warranty, and the IronWolf Pro comes with a 5 year warranty. One reason that some users prefer to buy NAS rated drives is that warranties can be longer for them.

NAS drives are also designed to handle more vibration than your standard desktop drives, the reason for this: Imagine a NAS enclosure with, say, 4-8 huge 8TB or 10TB drives all stored right next to each-other in that enclosed space. Hard drives used in this capacity tend to have the potential to "beat up" on each-other just with the raw force of all of those spinning platters and the operations taking place on them, causing performance and longevity issues. So the firmware on NAS drives is designed to account for, protect against issues with, and manage these vibration considerations. Some NAS drives actually have what are called RV (Rotational Vibration) Sensors on them as well for this same reason. If your priority is noise reduction, a NAS-optimized drive is probably not going to be your best option. They're very good at what they do, but they are not exactly known for being the quietest type of drive around.

You asked about how a NAS drive would compare performance-wise to the drives you have listed. Here is some basic info comparing some more common listed specs across the 3: Note: RPM refers to Revolutions Per Minute, or how many times the platters spin around in a minute. The GB per second number refers to the transfer rate.

ST4000DM000: 5900 RPM, 6Gb per second
ST32000542AS: 5900 RPM, 3Gb per second

ST8000VN002: 7200 RPM, 6Gb per second
(this is an 8TB Seagate IronWolf NAS drive we pulled info on for comparison.

If you would like further information on the performance of these drives, here are the data sheets on them for your reference: ST4000DM000, ST32000542AS, ST8000VN002.

Regardless of which specific drive you choose in the long run, we would love to hear how it works out for you, and we hope you find this information useful!

 

[bledd]

Yes

 

[Lee James]

LOL, thank you both for your answers (long and short)! But particular thanks to Seagate Surfer for all that excellent information, really helpful. It's nice that Seagate take the time to do this - and as you can see I've been a loyal (and happy) customer! LOL

 

[Efour]

I've always wondered this too, I knew the answer, but it's really nice to read it from the horses mouth. That doesn't quite work but yeah....

 

[seagate_surfer]

Hey, if we get to live vicariously through people building some pretty cool stuff online, read about the awesome things they're doing, and occasionally throw in some information which may be helpful, I could do that all day long! Thank you for being such a loyal customer!

 

[bledd]

That was an epic answer by the Seagate chap. Figured a 1 word answer would be funny for dramatic effect

 

[Lee James]

Just wanted to say that unfortunately I decided not to buy this hard drive (Seagate IronWolf 8TB) because quietness is really important to me and I am concerned about the noise it may make. It would be a nightmare to be stuck with something noisy on my desk next to me for the next 15 years! (That's assuming it lasted the course.)

It would be great to see some kind of comparison with other hard drives in decibels, or a video of the noise it makes, but alas there is none.

I am desperately low on hard drive space but have decided to wait until another model comes out that I'm sure won't be too loud, or until prices drop enough that I can consider other drives such as a WD Red perhaps. (Nothing against Seagate, just that I need a new hard drive.)

I also wish there were higher capacity drives on the market at a reasonable price. 8TB would be good, but it really isn't enough and I don't feel that capacities are going up quick enough. I'm easily ready for 16TB now. I'm saying this in case Seagate are listening!

 

[bremen1874]

How could you ever judge how loud a drive is by watching a YouTube video? It'll be so far removed from the original sound that it'll be completely meaningless.

Any modern drive in good health isn't going to be making any significant noise.

 

[Lee James]

Any modern drive in good health isn't going to be making any significant noise.

I wish you were correct, but everything I've read about the 8 and 10TB IronWolf drives says that they are much louder than normal hard drives, and much louder than the 6TB and under.

I've read so many people saying they are unbearably loud and can be heard in other rooms of the house, and not one person has reported them as being quiet. I sit in a very quiet room, and I'm a musician, and I like silence. I do not want anything noisy on my desk.

How could you ever judge how loud a drive is by watching a YouTube video? It'll be so far removed from the original sound that it'll be completely meaningless.

Are you saying you don't think it's possible to accurately record the sound a hard drive makes? Not even in a soundproofed recording studio with top-of-the-range microphones? Sorry but I can't agree with that.

I believe it is very possible, even with a relatively cheap microphone. You could record several hard drives from the same distance, allowing a direct comparison to be easily made. Real-life loudness could be easily percieved by including familiar noises in the video, such as tapping the unit, rubbing and clicking fingers together, etc. If I review hardware I always try to including clear recordings of the noises it makes so that people can hear exactly what they're getting.

 

[seagate_surfer]

Looking over things a little further, we did find some specs about the acoustic levels of IronWolf drives. If you look at this spec sheet, under the "Environmental" header, there is a section where it details acoustic specs.

Thinking over your situation and your needs, one thought did pop up: How married are you to the idea of staying with a single drive here? You see, the problem we are running into is that any single drive of the capacity you're looking at, something like an 8TB or 10TB, is going to be quite noisy regardless of whether it's optimized for desktop, NAS, or surveillance. The more platters you stack up in one drive, the louder it gets.

The obvious first solution if it were financially plausible would be an SSD, or Solid-State Drive. No spinning platters to deal with, no spinning noise. The issue there is SSDs are quite expensive so you wouldn't get anywhere near the same storage space you're looking for without selling off a couple less essential organs/limbs. We assume that you, much like us, are quite fond of your kidneys, arms, and legs.

Another ideal situation to deal with this would be some kind of NAS or server unit enclosure and/or a closet to stick it in, like in an enterprise use, but since we are just talking something to stick on a desk, where sound and video editing comes into play, if it may be a better solution to utilize several smaller drives. The smaller drives, as you can see even from the acoustics chart included, are quieter than the larger ones like 8TB or 10TB. Usually with any manufacturer, once you get into drives in the 6TB, 8TB, 10TB range, they spin at a 7200 RPM rate, so they are louder because they spin faster too. (Note: Another tip here is, if possible, stick the computer tower on carpet under the desk, it will be quieter for being on the carpet and also not being immediately next to your ears.)

Just looking at OcUK for general price comparison guesstimates, an 8TB IronWolf shows for £272.99. There's a bundle for a pair of 4TB IronWolf drives showing for £264.95 which is slightly better than the 8TB. The 8TB drive spins at 7200 RPM, the 4TB is 5900 RPM, so the drive not spinning as fast would provide benefit as far as reducing noise. Unless you are really pushing the drive past it's paces, the performance probably wouldn't be too different. A 4TB BarraCuda drive shows as £114.95, making a pair of them £229.90, better price than either of the other two options. The 4TB BarraCuda is also 5900 RPM. The separate drives would also be safer for your data, because in the event that one should fail, you don't lose ALL the data. Opening up the possibility of two smaller drives also leaves you the option of, if needed for financial considerations, buying the one and then just buying the other when possible.

You mentioned one of the reasons you like to have the single drive is to have the old ones for backups. Definitely understandable. If it were me, the strategy would probably be to buy a couple of the 4TB either BarraCuda or IronWolf drives and then pay a small fee to a cloud storage company to back my data up. Oftentimes when you go to buy hard drives, there's a certain size threshold where the price per TB is a sweet-spot, and the higher you go over that size, you're paying a premium to have the single drive.

Experienced techies will preach the 3-2-1 backup strategy, which is 3 copies of your data, 2 of them are local but stored on different mediums, and one copy off-site in case of a disaster. Backing up to a subscription cloud service puts a copy of your important data somewhere else so that if for any reason you lost data at your site, it would still be safe somewhere else.

 

[Lee James]

Seagate Surfer,

Excellent, excellent points! Thank you for your very thoughtful reply. Seagate get 10/10 for reps! Never seen a company engaging customers like this before

Let me first mention Cloud backups… while I can see the value of this service to other people, they are definitely not for me. I don't like other people handling my personal data in any way, even if I've thoroughly encrypted it first. So that is just not an option to me.

The idea of keeping additional backups in separate locations is something I do try to do when I can… just for my most precious data.

Though ultimately the thought of losing my data doesn't bother me as much as it probably bothers most people. My backup system is not done out of fear that my life would be over if I lost anything, I'm really just trying to take reasonable and sensible precautions, because hard drives do go sooner or later (I've had 2 die in years gone by and lost a lot of data - I think they were probably WD, but I don't really recall).

SSDs is something I already use for my boot drive, and I also have a partition on it where I keep stuff like my current work so it loads fast. Obviously, I LOVE SSDs and how silent they are - those drives are surely the future. But right now in 2017, as you say, I do value my kidneys, so not looking to invest in an 8TB SSD!

So finally, onto the idea of buying two 4TBs - yes, excellent idea, and one I have been seriously considering, and still am, especially now you reminded me of the prices. I have also been mindful of the 'safety in numbers' issue too - that issue is becoming more pertinent as hard drives become huge and failure risks increase. I agree with all your points.

There are only really 3 negatives about the idea of getting two 4TBs instead of one 8TB:

1. First, I'm always looking toward the future. In 10 years' time, a couple of 4TB hard drives are going to seem pretty small and useless - like a bit of an irritation to have in my PC - whereas a single 8TB drive (assuming it survives) will seem more useful. So that's one issue.

2. But the main reason is: It's just more drives to run. More power needed, more combined heat and noise. More clutter inside my case. As I said, my policy is to always keep the last 4 storage drives, so right now I have 4 HDDs (plus 1 SDD boot drive which I won't count as it's not mechanical) - so really, 4 feels like enough and if anything I'd like to start consolidating and getting fewer drives in my PC, not more. So that's really the biggest negative. I just like things to be as simple and elegant as possible and don't want too many of those whirring, buzzing little boxes in my PC.

3. Another very minor negative is that every time I buy a new hard drive I always find it really cool and exciting to have a large capacity I've never had before. Buying a 4TB would feel a bit like going back to 2014 for me, if that makes sense?

But I am not ruling this idea out.

And then the other idea is (as you say) I could buy just one 4TB for now which may put me on until higher capacity prices have come down a lot more?

Anyway, I'll post an update on this thread when I've decided. Thanks again for your time! It's nice to be able to talk this stuff through a bit

 

[dholdi]

I'm always looking toward the future. In 10 years' time, a couple of 4TB hard drives are going to seem pretty small and useless

10 years ??

 

[Lee James]

10 years ??

Well, 10 years was only an approximate figure, but here's the way I see it…

Right now I still have a 1TB drive in my PC which I bought 10 years ago. Sure, 1TB is not negligible, and is certainly useful. But considering that my total storage capacity this year will be 16TB (when I've bought my new drive) - that little 1TB drive is starting to seem *relatively* useless. And if I had two 1TB drives in my PC, frankly I would find that somewhat irritating. I'd be supplying power to two whole drives just for the sake of maybe an 8th of my total capacity.

But that's only the way I see it personally. Everyone's different.

 

[tres_kun]

I have a Seagate 10TB ironwolf pro
When in idle i am unable to hear it from the chair
Next to the drive you can hear it
It is comparable to a 6Tb WD read non pro
Sustained read or write are rather silent
Random write and read produces more noise than the WD 6TB red
Maximum read and write speed 240MB/s at beginning of drive 140Mb/s at end of platers
WD 6TB red 180Mb/s to as low as 90Mb/s
The Western digital is 1 year old
The 10TB Ironwolf non pro should be less noisi and a lot slower as not 7200RPM
But i miss the times seagate were releasing drives with 5 years warranty
Got the pro for only 1 reason 5 Years warranty as it will be a back-up for the 6X 3Tb drive nas i have

 

[Lee James]

Update:

I've been torn between getting the 8TB IronWolf or a couple of 4TB BarraCudas for a similar price. I have now made my decision and just ordered the Seagate 6TB Ironwolf - so something in the middle of the two options. I'm hoping that the 6TB drives are quieter than the 8tb ones, which is what I've heard.

6TB isn't as much space as I wanted, but it will hopefully be enough just to keep me going for a couple more years, when hopefully higher-capacity drives will be cheaper and quieter, and I'll have a lot more money!

Plus, the "new and exciting" factor still applies to this disk because it's bigger than any drive I've owned before.

Thanks everyone for your advice!

 

[Skiddley]

I have 8 WD Red drives sat in a Mini-ITX chassis on my desk right now, and the issue of noise has never entered my mind - even at night.

Just my 2p.

 

[Avalon]

Got a pair of 8TB IRONWOLF's on my desk at the moment, they're silent. Admittedly I should plug them in at some point.

 

[iamthenugget]

what does someone do with 16tb storage???

i struggle to fill a 1tb drive

 

[Avalon]

what does someone do with 16tb storage???

i struggle to fill a 1tb drive

Broaden your p0rn search criteria a little - it'll blow more than your mind

Simple version is I made the move to limit local storage on boxes to SSD's and move everything to NAS. We're a family of four, multiple PC's/laptops/tablets/phones and myself and my wife grew up in a time when physical media was king, that ended up in a frankly horrific situation where it took up a stupid amount of space in living areas to make it accessible and it rarely got touched, add in the horror of seeing what children can do to physical media and something had to give. Moving it to a digital solution with cover art etc. made it significantly more accessible to everyone, gave me the ability to make age appropriate content available to the kids. Drawing a line at a certain age rating on the likes of NowTV excludes things like some of the Marvel films that I personally don't have a problem with them watching, but at the same time I can think of lots of 15's that i'd consider inappropriate for a 7 and 8 year old. The other issue is work, I use Corel Draw a lot, it creates two versions of each file for local backup's, files range from a few hundred k up to a few hundred MB per file and I have to keep each revision, I also run off site backup's for work.