With its newest products, Seagate joins the list of hard drive manufacturers offering 20TB of storage in a single drive.
These new 20TB drives come in a few different flavors. The Seagate Exos X20 20TB models offer SATA or SAS 12Gbps interface options, and can include standard or self-encrypting drives, according to Anandtech. The Seagate IronWolf Pro 20TB comes only as a SATA-based drive.
Both the Exos X20 and IronWolf Pro drives run at 7,200RPM and feature 256MB of DRAM cache, Anandtech explains, and they can deliver data transfer rates of 285MB/s. The Exos X20 is geared up for more intensive applications with a MTBF (mean time between failure) of 2.5 million hours and 550TB annual workload, while the IronWolf Pro 20TB offers a 1.2-million-hour MTBF and has a 300TB annual workload.
As Anandtech outlines, the Seagate IronWolf Pro 20TB lags slightly behind competing products from Western Digital for workload and MTBF, but the Seagate Exos X20 keeps up with WD’s Gold 20TB and Ultrastar HC560 there.
Seagate’s drives are slightly more affordable. The IronWolf Pro is $650 and the Exos X20 is $670 compared to the WD Gold 20TB at $680 and the WD Ultrastar HC560 at $700.
Seagate’s new drives will launch later this month. This is a bit later than the previously anticipated 2020 launch of a 20TB drive from the company. Up next? A 50TB by 2026.
