▷ Seagate hard drives: barracuda, firecuda, skyhawk, ironwolf ...?

Seagate is pushing the limits of magnetic media, and is relaunching a familiar brand name in the consumer space, while introducing new brands for its NAS and remote surveillance products. As we have said in the first paragraph, we will help you know everything you need to know about Seagate HDD models.

Index of contents

Seagate BarraCuda is back

For more than a decade, Seagate's high-end consumer units have been rated Barracuda. In 2013, the company unofficially withdrew the name, choosing instead to refer to its desktop drives as "Desktop HDDs." While the company earns points for simplicity, "Desktop HDD" is not the type of brand that makes anyone excited about anything. Seagate has relaunched Barracuda, or BarraCuda, if you prefer Seagate's new spelling, the brand name around its new consumer units.

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Differences between BarraCuda and BarraCuda Pro

BarraCuda drives are available in two versions: BarraCuda and BarraCuda Pro. BarraCuda base drives are available in a variety of capacities and 2.5 and 3.5 inch form factors up to 8TB, while BarraCuda Pro drives are 3.5-inch products available up to 12TB. Seagate has also renamed its Solid State Hybrid Hard Drives (SSHD) to FireCuda.

The difference between BarraCuda and BarraCuda Pro is your (annual) workload speed limit, warranty period, and sustained transfer rates. BarraCuda drives can transfer up to 210MB / s, have a workload limit of 55TB / year, and a two-year warranty. BarraCuda Pro drives , by contrast, offer a sustained transfer rate of 220 MB / s, a write limit of 300 TB / year, and a five-year warranty. Keep in mind that the sustained transfer rate is a suspicious phrase at best. A typical sustained transfer rate of a 7200 RPM HDD will depend on where the data is stored on the drive. The data stored on the outer edge will transfer faster than the innermost tracks.

Seagate literature references smart cache management software that improves overall BarraCuda performance, but its conventional BarraCuda / BarraCuda Pro drives do not include any NAND flash and DRAM caches, now up to 256MB on 12TB drives, have been increased to keep pace with increasing storage capacities. These new 12TB drives do not use helium, but are also not based on shingled magnetic recording. These units use conventional perpendicular recording, which means that they will not receive a performance impact when writing data.

These new products are a significant achievement, as consumer 12TB drives are an important step above what is already on the market, and Seagate is confident enough in its product portfolio to roll them out to all of its products by same time. HDD manufacturers have been hit hard by two trends in the PC market. Like the rest of the PC industry, they face declining unit shipments as consumer and business PC sales decline and long-awaited update cycles do not materialize. They are also under pressure from SSDs. While most PCs still prefer hard drives over solid state storage, SSDs have forged a good deal of the business that used to belong to hard drive manufacturers.

FireCuda, uniting magnetic technology with NAND

FireCuda are Seagate hard drives that include a small amount of NAND MLC memory to speed up their operation, they are what is known as SSHD. Available in 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch formats, they reach a maximum capacity of 2TB with an 8GB NAND MLC cache. This allows the operating system and the most used programs to work faster, since this concept seeks to obtain something similar to what Intel Optane does, although on a much smaller scale and if so many benefits. FireCud drives bring together the latest in NAND flash technology with a conventional hard drive, offering a combination of capacity and speeds up to five times faster than typical hard drives, all backed by a five-year warranty.

Seagate Skyhawk and Ironwolf for surveillance and NAS

Seagate has also launched new brands and product families for its other divisions. Remote camera surveillance units are now sold under the Skyhawk brand, while its 14TB Network Attached Storage (NAS) units are marked as Ironwolf. I ronwolf units contain additional vibration damping technology, including remote vibration sensors, dual plane balancing, and built-in error recovery control. Vibration damping is a serious consideration for NAS (network attached storage) devices or servers. As shown in the previous video, yelling at a server can kill hard drive performance.

Designed for multi-user environments and high operating rates, the Seagate IronWolf series are NAS hard drives enhanced with AgileArray technology for increased system reliability and expandability. IronWolf Health Management (IHM) allows the unit to be in the best possible condition. When IronWolf hard drives are integrated into compatible network attached storage (NAS) systems, the overall reliability of the system is improved by constantly monitoring the NAS system and alerting users as necessary. For added protection, a 2-year Rescue Recovery Data Plan is included when you purchase and register an IronWolf unit.

Exos, Seagate's helium hard drives

Exos is Seagate's series of hard drives that are made using helium instead of air to seal the interior space. This hard drive consists of seven platters and 14 heads, something that would be very difficult to achieve with air. Helium is a much lighter and less dense gas than air, which reduces turbulence and therefore resistance and friction when turning the plates. As a result, Seagate Enterprise can offer 25% more storage density compared to air hard drives.

Offering higher storage density in the same 3.5-inch space, the Seagate Exos is ideal for hyperscale environments. Improved area density means Seagate can offer greater storage capacity in a smaller package, a milestone to meet the demand of the growing needs of the data center. Exos offers the industry's lowest power consumption, smallest space, and best-in-class performance, making the hard drive an affordable solution for data centers looking to maximize their storage capabilities, while reducing complexity and operating costs. These drives reach a maximum capacity of 14TB, with seven platters rotating at 7, 200 revolutions per minute, promising data transfers of up to 216MB / s.

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This ends our article on Seagate hard drives, we hope you find it very useful when buying a new hard drive for your PC.