Before we being let us be blunt. We really liked this model. Its combination of enhanced durability, reliability, increased warranty, improved performance and best of all not that large an increase in asking price is a veritable siren song for NAS-heads and storage enthusiasts alike. Seagate could have easily called this model an ‘Exos Lite’, continued to price it as was at launch and we still would have been happy with what it has to offer. They did not do this. Instead at its new lowered price they have created one heck of a bargain. One where you can get a lot more performance and durability for not that much extra up-front cost. That pretty much is the epitome of ‘value’ in our books.
So, if you are a responsible for a Small or even a Medium(ish) sized Business yet cannot justify the cost of the uber EXOS series, and do not care about a write-back instead of write-through cache policy, this IronWolf Pro 16TB is meant for you. Pull the trigger on that buy order and be done with it. Being able to stuff 24 drives (for a whopping 384TB of raw capacity) in a single 4U network storage device and not have to worry about them shaking themselves to death is a great feeling. Being able to do that and not have to spend EXOS levels of money… well that is an even better feeling. If you just run a Small Office / Home Office the same is also true. Nearly the same great ‘taste’ as the Exos with a ‘less filling’ asking price. That is one heck of an argument in its favor to say the least.
If you are the typical home user with a lot or just a little experience with NAS and have only one typical sized NAS server or NAS appliance… well things do get tricky. On the one hand this model only costs about $25 dollars more than the non-Pro IronWolf 16TB model. Is that extra money, money well spent? Maybe… maybe even ‘probably. You will get better theoretical performance… but eight standard IronWolf 16TB’ers will saturate a 1Gbe (125MBps) or even 10Gbe (1,250MBps) based network. Only those with dual 10Gbe NIC teaming configurations (or pricey networks with better than 10Gbe architecture) will get noticeably better performance opting for the Pro model. You will however get a longer warranty period with the Pro version. You will get a more robust storage design with the Pro. But, honestly when talking about 8 drives or less the IronWolf Pro 16TB might be over-kill for overkill’s sake. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but it really will boil down to how often you swap your drives out and how important an extra two years of warranty is to you. Honestly, both models are excellent and do not think for one moment you are making a huge mistake if you pick one over the other. Figure out what is more important to you: less cost per drive, or 2 years longer warranty (and all that entails from a durability perspective).
Further muddying the waters is for home users who want to use or two or more in a RAID array to handle their mega sized Steam / Origin/ etc. game account… or as a mega capacity 4/8K raw video storage container, this drive would be right up there on our recommendation list. The longer warranty with improved durability will be overkill but when thinking about having to re-download 32TB+ worth of games or figuring out how to reshoot all that lost video… well overkill is not a bad thing. Of course, if you just plan on buying one drive to use as your ‘D’ drive the IronWolf Pro is not optimal. It can whistle the tune but you will be spending money for features you can not use… or even want. Only those who need more capacity than what the ‘Cuda Pro model can offer (as it tops out at 14TB as the time of this review) should seriously consider the IronWolf Pro 16TB.
So while the latest IronWolf Pro models will not be right for everyone they are surprisingly flexible. In fact, all three of Seagate’s latest generation of more business orientated SATA models are safe choices. Be it the budget orientated IronWolf, the all rounder IronWolf Pro, or the ultra-impressive Exos. You really cannot go wrong with any of these three models. Most however should give serious consideration to the IronWolf Pro as its blend of performance and (relatively) reasonable asking price make it the best overall value option of the three.
The Review
Seagate IronWolf Pro 16TB
Before we being let us be blunt. We really liked this model. Its combination of enhanced durability, reliability, increased warranty, improved performance and best of all not that large an increase in asking price is a veritable siren song for NAS-heads and storage enthusiasts alike.
