Seagate Exos X18 Review

Final Score: 96%

Let’s start with the elephant in the room. Yes, the Exos X18 costs noticeably less than the IronWolf Pro 18TB drive. As we have proven in the previous pages, this has nothing to do with corner cutting or downgrading of the Exos’ high standards. The Exos X18 is simply the better drive. The reason it costs less comes down to a few key reasons. First, Seagate makes a veritable ton of these drives to satisfy the Enterprise market and simple economy of scale helps reduce Seagate’s manufacturing costs. That actually is only a peripheral reason for why its cheaper – as Seagate is not a charity and have a fiduciary responsibly to make as much profit for their shareholders as they can.

The “real” / major reasons are a bit more complex but in this corner of the market Seagate has to stay on their toes as the competition is no joke. There is such stiff competition that Seagate has to charge less in order to keep their (intended) customers happy lest they go for Toshiba or WD or etc. etc. and lose sale that could be in the millions. Lastly, the build quality and included value added features are different than the ‘Wolf Pro models. This drive is built like a tank. Fewer drive replacements under warranty means Seagate can use a smaller buffer built into the MSRP to cover these predicated future losses. When you then mix in the lack of the ‘free’ recovery services that the IronWolf comes with it is pretty obvious why the Exos X18 typically costs less these days than the IronWolf Pro. This is not a slight against the IronWolf Pro, it is a very good drive. It just is a more niche drive that costs Seagate more to produce… and they can sell it for more. Nothing more, nothing less, and certainly no need to worry over opting for the better yet cheaper drive.

With that taken care of, and much like the IronWolf Pro 18TB, the Exos X18 18TB is best described as an evolution of the EXOS X-series design and not a revolution. That is not a Bad Thing™. Far, far from it in fact. The fact of the matter is while the IronWolf Pro series is meant for serious scenarios in S/MB type environments, the EXOS X-series is targeted towards a much more demanding clientele. A clientele who are extremely conservative by nature and do not want, need, or even like ‘surprises’ – even pleasant surprises. Instead, professional’s in enterprise environments demand consistency and they want to know precisely what they are going to get when they specify a certain storage solution. Put another way they want a proven design with a proven track record. A design that has simply been upgraded or evolved into an even more powerful, and spacious, option to satisfy their very demanding, very specific needs.

While not perfect, this is what the X18 generation brings to the table. So, while the ‘only’ major changes are in the density of the platters used and improvements in firmware, the Exos X18 is indeed an excellent upgrade from the previous flagship X16 model. Buyers will get a design with a proven track record. They will get fine grain control over how the X18 acts in the real-world. Better still, they will get a hard drive that is so fast, and stays fast so long, that it is scary. Mix in raw rack storage capacity that is only matched by the size of its warranty and the X18 is the drive to use if you are serious about your data center’s storage requirements. Buy them by the pallet load and move on to worrying about actual problems.

Make no mistake. This series may indeed be designed with laser like focus on the needs of the Hyperscale Data Center consumer, but that does not mean it cannot be just as good a solution outside of that niche. Everything from S/MB consumers with a single storage server, to John and Jane Q public who want only 1 drive for their PC will find this a truly decadent option. One that brings new meaning to the phrase “there is no such thing as overkill”. As long as you do not care about ‘free’ recovery services, and do not mind a firmware that may not optimized for your needs it is one killer deal. As such we strongly recommend thinking long and hard about the Exos X18 before opting for any other mega-capacity drive model out there right now.