HGST Deskstar NAS 6 TB Review
by Ganesh T S on December 23, 2014 11:00 AM ESTConcluding Remarks
The HGST Deskstar NAS 6 TB has been evaluated for both NAS and DAS applications and the numbers put up for comparison against other 6 TB drives targeting this market segment. As expected, there is no 'one size fits all' model in this area. The various hard drives in the comparison lot were launched targeting different markets and their resulting performance varies accordingly.
Thanks to the 7200 RPM speeds, the HGST Deskstar NAS does manage to acquit itself well in the overall performance category. Though it is not the absolute best, it performs admirably well in the random access patterns segment of the multi-client evaluation.
The HGST Deskstar NAS doesn't deliver the lowest power consumption. Those were recorded, as expected, with the 5400 RPM WD Red and the HelioSeal-technology based HGST Ultrastar He6. However, the Deskstar NAS manages to almost win the efficiency category - thanks to the great balance between speed and power consumption.
In terms of pricing, the HGST Deskstar NAS wins comfortably. It is, by far, the most price effective 7200 rpm 6 TB drive in this market segment. At $300, the Deskstar NAS is beaten in price only by the 5400 RPM WD Red, which currently retails for around $270.
There are plenty of options for NAS users looking to stock up their NAS units with high capacity drives. 6 TB drives represent the current bleeding edge, and consumers need to make sure that their NAS is compatible with the chosen drive. One of the unfortunate aspects with the 6 TB Deskstar NAS was that one of the four drives that we were sampled was consistently discarded with a 'Bad HDD I/O Access History' by our QNAP testbed. This was triggered by a sense key error at the beginning of the initialization process (similar to what we saw for the WD Red 6 TB version). The 'defective' drive, however, managed to pass extended S.M.A.R.T tests on our DAS testbed. We are chalking this down to compatibility problems for the QNAP testbed with these new drives.
4 TB drives offer an alternative to the potential risk in going the new technology route with 6 TB drives for cautious buyers. With the right data in hand, it's easy enough to find the best fit by taking into consideration the expected workload and desired price points.The overall verdict is that the 6 TB HGST Deskstar NAS is a cost-effective solution for SOHO / power user scenarios where storage density is of primary importance. One just needs to make sure that their NAS is compatible with the 6 TB variant before going ahead with the purchase.
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Guspaz - Tuesday, December 23, 2014 - link
$300 for a 6TB drive doesn't seem very cost-effective when 8TB drives sell for $260, and 4TB drives sell for $140. Heck, even the 4TB HGST DeskStar NAS sells for only $165. This isn't really a fault with the HGST drive specifically (since other 6TB drives aren't any cheaper), but more a fault with the 6TB capacity point.Of course, the 8TB drive in question is using SMR, and so ought to be rather slow for writes, but when you've got a bunch of them in a server with some SSDs for caching, it shouldn't be so bad.
insz - Tuesday, December 23, 2014 - link
Can you please provide a link to an 8TB drive for $260?Dreamwalker - Tuesday, December 23, 2014 - link
Here in EU you can get the Seagate Archive 8TB for ~226EUR (275USD with vat). It targets cloud/cold storage market but I think it should be great for a HTPC too...https://geizhals.at/eu/seagate-archive-hdd-v2-8tb-...
patrioteagle07 - Tuesday, January 6, 2015 - link
You do not want that drive... it is cheap because it is SMR. SMR is for COLD storage not NAS.BeAi - Wednesday, January 7, 2015 - link
Hi there, we are Premium Reseller of HGST, about these disks i could give some more inputs... First, the Seagate is a SMR Disk, only good for Backupszenarios, further they have only 3 years warranty.The HGST 8TB Disk is not a SMR Disk, HGST has got the 10 TB SMR Disk for Backupsolutions. Than the HGST Disk have got 5 Years warranty, for business solutions is that an argument. Last but not least, HGST has released on all SAS3 Disk the Media Caching Technologie, the disk are probably up to 3 times faster than other disk on the market. We have tested disks in our Lab, with a 1.2TB media caching 10k Disk, it will be faster than a 15k normal 2,5 inc disk. For more information, feel free to visit our online Shop: shop.storagespace.ch Kind Regards.
BeAi - Wednesday, January 7, 2015 - link
Sorry i have forget that the HGST 8TB also have the Helium 8 Technologie, its also a He8 Plate, the Seagate havent got helium inside...Benefit of HGST Helium: up to 50% less energy cost, and less heat from the plate... If you wanna have an offer or more informations: info@storagespace.ch
takeshi7 - Tuesday, December 23, 2014 - link
I think he's citing this article. That $260/8TB is bulk pricing for buying 20 drives it looks like.http://www.extremetech.com/computing/195543-seagat...
nandnandnand - Tuesday, December 23, 2014 - link
The $260 8 TB drive isn't out yet. But it is a good thingrealwarder - Friday, December 26, 2014 - link
Having a higher performance 6TB drive now is worth the extra money in the time saved over upgrading a 4TB drive later. It may be twice the price, but in $ it's not really much compared to reworking an entire setup later to add storage (unless you have a 8+ disk array with lots of room to grow)hlmcompany - Tuesday, December 23, 2014 - link
Regardless of the capacity, this HGST drive is in the same category as a WD Red Pro, NOT a WD Red.