Seagate Exos X24 Review

Final Score: 92% / 92 out of 100

There is no denying that the new 24TB variant of Seagate’s Exos series is phenomenally fast. Nor is there going to be many queueing up to deny the technological advancements it has to offer. Sadly, even after three years of waiting for H.A.M.R.(time) based models, the X24 is still PMR based and few will look beyond that fact. Worse still, even fewer outside the industry will get why this new addition is so exciting for us ‘storage nerds’. After all, last year Seagate offered 22TB capacity models and this one ‘merely’ continues Seagate’s trend of minor to moderate increases in both capacity (an extra 2TB for a decade and counting) and performance (single digit average) improvement every generation. This is indeed true. In fact, one can argue that Seagate’s spindle and platter division actively try and release new models that seemingly offer only a ‘slight’ increase in both capacity and performance over their direct predecessor. Compare and contrast that with Seagate’s Solid-State NAND models year over year improvements and the average buyer could easily be forgiven for not understanding why such consistent improvements are impressive, significant and highly appreciated by the intended buyers of these storage devices.

So let us break down why the Exos X24 is such a big deal for Enterprise clients. According the both statistics, and personal real-world anecdotal evidence, data capacity demands are once again accelerating. Yes China’s 2019 ‘gift’ to the world did slow things down for a bit but that breather is now over. For example ten years ago 12.5 Zettabytes (or 12,500 Exabytes… or 12.5 million Petabytes… or 12.5 billion Terabytes) of new data was created. In 2020 that number was 64 Zettabytes (basically fivefold increase). This year it will be an estimated 120 Zettabytes (i.e. a nearly tenfold increase in one decade). With the advent of “AI” this acceleration trend will continue for the foreseeable future and experts are expecting next year’s total data creation to hit 180 Zettabytes. That is how fast the demand is growing and yet in that self-same period of time drive capacity has only increased (threefold) from 8TB to 24TB.
According the both statistics, and personal real-world anecdotal evidence, the average Data Center’s storage array is relying upon 16TB drives. To put that in perspective this means the average data center’s storage array is using two to three year old drives that are making use of 4 year old storage technology (as Enterprise professionals are both conservative by nature and we typically wait one to two years before trusting a given generation of anything). Much like with the ten year old Seagate Enterprise Capacity HDDv5 8TB drive, those Exos X16 16TB drives launched for about $500 and when purchased in bulk two years later they set buyers back about $400 per drive.

Why is all this important background information? It is important because for the first time in a long time storage admins can do a 1 to 1 swap from 16TB to 24TB drives and keep up with the increase in storage demands! No need for more additional, rather expensive, storage arrays. No need for an increase in budgeted electricity demands. No increase in AC cooling requirements. Simply yank the 16’s, swap them for 24s, and rebuild the array. Do this and your company is no longer falling behind and may even be able to put off that data center upgrade for another year. Better still this simple swap will net noticeably improved array performance (going from 261MB/s per drive to 285MB/s) and will not impact your budget any more than what those pallets of X16’s cost two years ago. Higher performance. Higher data density. Lower cost per TB… and all that without “inflation adjustment” increase in MSRP?! Now that is what will make even the most phlegmatic of buyers smile. This is why the Seagate Exos X24 is so impressive. It is why we cannot say enough good things about it. It just is that good. So if you are a professional looking to stave off the voracious appetite of the industry for another year, the Seagate Exos X24 demands to be on your short, short… short list.