As far as any PC is concerned, undeniably the need for a Hard disk drive is a crucial one. NAS (Network Operating System) is the alternate way to save files when cloud storage is not available. In today’s day and age, NAS hard drives have taken the business and networking world by storm. Hence, in today’s time and space, there cannot be the best solution for small and enterprise businesses as well as homes than NAS hard disk drives. Investing in the best NAS hard drive is probably the wisest choice that an entrepreneur can take. It is as important to homes as it is to commercial and official purposes, because, we are connected with the network 24/7 through mobile devices, desktops, and laptops.
Why A NAS Storage Is Necessary
The two major players as far as NAS storage is concerned, are Western Digital and Seagate. However, instead of jumping into the bandwagon, we should first figure out why a NAS is important. One of the crucial aspects that should be noted is to select the right hard drive for NAS storage and the details that come with it. NAS has proven its effectiveness throughout the IT world, making the sharing of a plethora of files much easier than envisioned. Several organisations make use of NAS technology for remote access and sharing files in the cloud. A NAS server is known for holding up to thousands of files at one time, hence, proving its ground in the field of storage capacity. It is also worthy to note that the NAS storage for home systems have a different purpose of storage, as compared to that of enterprises and organisations. There are three categories of NAS technology storage i.e. mid-market, desktop or low-end, and enterprise or high end.
Importance of Selecting the Right NAS HDD
In terms of performance, NAS hard drives are unbeatable and designed to deliver a solid performance for hours, days, and even weeks nonstop. While planning to purchase the NAS HDD, you need to be aware of the companies that offer the relevant NAS hard disk drives. The two main brands Western Digital and Seagate have been head-to-head in a competition that they are the perfect choice for any business or home-based setting.
Selecting the right NAS hard drive
Acronyms You Should Be Familiar With
Before diving deep into the details regarding what NAS hard disk drives are all about, we should be familiar with how to choose the right one. For this purpose, the first part of the process is to familiarise myself with the acronyms that come with it.
NAS: The acronym NAS stands for network-attached storage that is connected with the local network. According to Seagate, it is “like having a private cloud in the office”, and it is certainly the case.
RAID: RAID is an acronym for Redundant Array of Independent Disks; it is the process to save precise data on several hard disks. In case of failure of software or hardware, the performance is not affected, since the backup was already made.
JBOD: JBOD stands for Just a Bunch of Disks and it combines several hard disks merging into one volume. The JBOD is supported by several levels of RAID from 1 to 10 as well as a variety of NAS drives.
What NAS Types Should I Purchase? How Many Bays Will Be Enough?
NAS drives are available with diverse drive bays, while the variants of it are accessible in one, two, three, or four-bay consumer models. By making use of two similar hard disk drives, a sensible minimum of a two-bay system is enabled. Hence, these storage devices are mirrored in the configuration of RAID1. Therefore, in case of failure of one hard disk drive, the data can be copied into another one. Hence, you should not focus entirely on RAID0 configurations or JBOD. Nevertheless, even if they offer more capacity, yet they lack fault tolerance. Hence, the failure of one hard drive will lead to the loss of precious data.
On the contrary, if you are looking for an effective solution, then a four-bay NAS proves to be the right choice, however, for that purpose; you must be willing to invest an extra amount of money. A RAID5 array can be set up if you have four disks offering data security as well as capacity in a balance. A part of the disk is set aside for parity data, as compared to the other three drives, as per this arrangement. For instance,
If you are working and a hard disk drive fails the backup, three hard drives of 1TB will enable you to continue doing the work. Hence, the data of more or less 3TB can be stored, so that you do not face any problems while saving data. The additional features that are included within four-bay NAS applications include LCDs and more ports. However, despite their effective approach, they are more expensive, noisier, and power-hungry.
Connections That You should seek.
A variety of NAS hard drives can help to share files over the network by connecting an external hard disk drive, consisting of one or more USB 3 ports. For one-touch copying, the front also consists of a connector, and thus all the external drives’ contents will copy every content to the Network Operating System (NAS). In case the data you have is all over the place inside external drives, all the files will be stored simultaneously in one place.
Who is better: Seagate V/S. WD?
Western Digital and Seagate have been competitive as far as providing NAS storage devices are concerned, particularly the HDDs. They always prove dominance over the other claiming that they are best for business and home purposes. While there are other players in the market as well, yet there is no competition to what Seagate and Western Digital have to offer. Below are some of the best NAS hard drives we have mentioned below which include Seagate, Western Digital, and others as well.
Seagate Hard Drives
ST8000VNB022
| Model | |
| Manufacturer | Seagate |
| Manufacturer Part # | ST8000VNB022 |
| Product Line | IronWolf |
| Performance | |
| Product Type | Internal Hard Drive |
| Form Factor | 3.5-inch |
| Capacity | 8 TB |
| Cache | 256 MB |
| Spindle Speed | 7200 RPM |
| Average Seek Time | 8.5 ms |
| Drive Interface Type | SATA 6.0 Gbps |
1H4167-505
| Model | |
| Manufacturer | Seagate |
| Manufacturer Part # | 1H4167-505 |
| Product Line | Enterprise |
| Product Series | NAS |
| Performance | |
| Product Type | Internal Hard Drive |
| Form Factor | 3.5-inch |
| Capacity | 3 TB |
| Cache | 64 MB |
| Spindle Speed | 7200 RPM |
| Average Seek Time | 8.5 ms |
| Drive Interface Type | SATA 6.0 Gbps |
| Other Information | |
| Features | · Native Command Queuing (NCQ)
· Perpendicular Recording Technology · On-the-fly Error-correction Algorithms |
ZA1920NM10011
| Model | |
| Manufacturer | Seagate |
| Manufacturer Part # | ZA1920NM10011 |
| Product Line | IronWolf |
| Performance | |
| Product Type | Internal Hard Drive |
| Form Factor | 3.5-inch |
| Capacity | 92 TB |
| Cache | 256 MB |
| Spindle Speed | 7200 RPM |
| Average Seek Time | 8.5 ms |
| Drive Interface Type | SATA 6.0 Gbps |
ST4000NE0025
| Model | |
| Manufacturer | Seagate |
| Manufacturer Part # | ST4000NE0025 |
| Product Line | IronWolf |
| Product Series | Pro |
| Performance | |
| Product Type | Internal Hard Drive |
| Form Factor | 3.5-inch |
| Capacity | 4 TB |
| Cache | 128 MB |
| Spindle Speed | 7200 RPM |
| Average Seek Time | 8.5 ms |
| Drive Interface Type | SATA 6.0 Gbps |
| Other Information | |
| Features | · Advanced Format (AF)
· Seagate Rescue Data Recovery · Optimised for NAS with AgileArray · Rotational Vibration (RV) Mitigation |
ST3000VN0001
| Model | |
| Manufacturer | Seagate |
| Manufacturer Part # | ST3000VN0001 |
| Product Line | Enterprise |
| Product Series | NAS |
| Performance | |
| Product Type | Internal Hard Drive |
| Form Factor | 3.5-inch |
| Capacity | 3 TB |
| Cache | 128 MB |
| Spindle Speed | 7200 RPM |
| Average Seek Time | 8.5 ms |
| Drive Interface Type | SATA 6.0 Gbps |
| Other Information | |
| Features | · Native Command Queuing
· Perpendicular Recording Technology · On-the-fly Error-correction Algorithms |
ST5000VN0001
| Model | |
| Manufacturer | Seagate |
| Manufacturer Part # | ST5000VN0001 |
| Product Line | Enterprise |
| Product Series | NAS |
| Performance | |
| Product Type | Internal Hard Drive |
| Form Factor | 3.5-inch |
| Capacity | 5 TB |
| Cache | 128 MB |
| Spindle Speed | 7200 RPM |
| Average Seek Time | 8.5 ms |
| Drive Interface Type | SATA 6.0 Gbps |
| Other Information | |
| Features | · Native Command Queuing
· Perpendicular Recording Technology · On-the-fly Error-correction Algorithms |
Western Digital NAS Hard Drives
WDBYBL0040HNC-NASN
| Model | |
| Manufacturer | Western Digital |
| Manufacturer Part # | WDBYBL0040HNC-NASN |
| Product Line | Expansion Kit |
| Performance | |
| Product Type | Internal Hard Drive |
| Form Factor | 3.5-inch |
| Capacity | 4 TB |
| Cache | 32 MB |
| Spindle Speed | 5400 RPM |
| Average Seek Time | 14 ms |
| Drive Interface Type | SATA 6.0 Gbps |
WD50EFRX
| Model | |
| Manufacturer | Western Digital |
| Manufacturer Part # | WD50EFRX |
| Product Line | Red |
| Performance | |
| Product Type | Internal Hard Drive |
| Form Factor | 3.5-inch |
| Capacity | 5 TB |
| Cache | 64 MB |
| Spindle Speed | 5400 RPM |
| Average Seek Time | 14 ms |
| Drive Interface Type | SATA 6.0 Gbps |
| Other Information | |
| Features | · Advanced Format (AF)
· Active Power Management · 24/7 Operational Reliability |
| Additional Information | · WD Red is designed specifically for NAS systems |
WD50EFRX
| Model | |
| Manufacturer | Western Digital |
| Manufacturer Part # | WD50EFRX |
| Product Line | Red |
| Performance | |
| Product Type | Internal Hard Drive |
| Form Factor | 3.5-inch |
| Capacity | 5 TB |
| Cache | 64 MB |
| Spindle Speed | 5400 RPM |
| Average Seek Time | 14 ms |
| Drive Interface Type | SATA 6.0 Gbps |
| Other Information | |
| Features | · Advanced Format (AF)
· Active Power Management · 24/7 Operational Reliability |
| Additional Information | · WD Red is designed specifically for NAS systems |
WD30EFRX
| Model | |
| Manufacturer | Western Digital |
| Manufacturer Part # | WD30EFRX |
| Product Line | Red |
| Performance | |
| Product Type | Internal Hard Drive |
| Form Factor | 3.5-inch |
| Capacity | 3 TB |
| Cache | 64 MB |
| Spindle Speed | 5400 RPM |
| Average Seek Time | 14 ms |
| Drive Interface Type | SATA 6.0 Gbps |
| Other Information | |
| Features | · Advanced Format (AF)
· Active Power Management · 24/7 Operational Reliability |
| Additional Information | · WD Red is designed specifically for NAS systems |
WD7500BFCX
| Model | |
| Manufacturer | Western Digital |
| Manufacturer Part # | WD7500BFCX |
| Product Line | Red |
| Performance | |
| Product Type | Internal Hard Drive |
| Form Factor | 2.5-inch |
| Capacity | 750 GB |
| Cache | 16 MB |
| Spindle Speed | 5400 RPM |
| Average Seek Time | 12 ms |
| Drive Interface Type | SATA 6.0 Gbps |
WD80EFZX-68UW8N0
| Model | |
| Manufacturer | Western Digital |
| Manufacturer Part # | WD80EFZX-68UW8N0 |
| Product Line | Red |
| Performance | |
| Product Type | Internal Hard Drive |
| Form Factor | 3.5-inch |
| Capacity | 8 TB |
| Cache | 128 MB |
| Spindle Speed | 5400 RPM |
| Average Seek Time | 14 ms |
| Drive Interface Type | SATA 6.0 Gbps |
Other NAS Hard Drives
0S03660
| Model | |
| Manufacturer | Hitachi |
| Manufacturer Part # | 0S03660 |
| Product Line | Deskstar |
| Product Series | NAS |
| Performance | |
| Product Type | Internal Hard Drive |
| Form Factor | 3.5-inch |
| Capacity | 3 TB |
| Cache | 64 MB |
| Spindle Speed | 7200 RPM |
| Average Seek Time | 8.5 ms |
| Drive Interface Type | SATA 6.0 Gbps |
| Other Information | |
| Features | · 24×7 Accessibility for Enterprise-class
· Enhanced Rotational Vibration Safeguard (RVS) |
0S03666
| Model | |
| Manufacturer | Hitachi |
| Manufacturer Part # | 0S03666 |
| Product Line | Deskstar |
| Product Series | NAS |
| Performance | |
| Product Type | Internal Hard Drive |
| Form Factor | 3.5-inch |
| Capacity | 4 TB |
| Cache | 64 MB |
| Spindle Speed | 7200 RPM |
| Average Seek Time | 8.5 ms |
| Drive Interface Type | SATA 6.0 Gbps |
| Other Information | |
| Features | · 24×7 Accessibility for Enterprise-class
· Enhanced Rotational Vibration Safeguard (RVS) |
4N40A33704
| Model | |
| Manufacturer | Lenovo |
| Manufacturer Part # | 4N40A33704 |
| Performance | |
| Product Type | Internal Hard Drive |
| Form Factor | 3.5-inch |
| Capacity | 1 TB |
| Cache | 32 MB |
| Spindle Speed | 7200 RPM |
| Drive Interface Type | SATA 3.0 Gbps |
Irrespective of the amount, you spend to purchase the NAS hard drive, if it is not up to the mark, then all the files within are damaged. If you are looking to get more information related to the mentioned products, then Bulk Devices UK is the appropriate platform in that regard. Here, we have a wide range of IT products as per your requirement.