With so many hard drive offering available it can be hard to pick what the best hard drive to use is depending on your situation. So often people choose the wrong drives and end up paying the price with poor performance or even worse, data loss. So to help you make your selection a little easier we have put together this quick Seagate buyer’s guide to help you find the perfect hard drive for your needs.
The Importance of Picking the Right Hard Drive for the Right Job
It’s important to choose the best hard drive to make your computer perform efficiently. You are going to be storing important files on them so it is important that you ensure those files don’t end up in the abyss due to hard drive failure.
Choosing the right hard drive will make all of the difference. The drive’s reliability and efficiency depend on how to plan to use the drives and how you need it to work.
Everything that’s kept on your hard drive is calculated based on its file size. As a very rough example, text files are considered small in file size, whereas photos and audio are considerably larger. When you add video files into the mix and PC games etc, sizes start to get substantially larger.
If you plan on storing a lot of files or playing a range of different PC games then you need to ensure that you purchase a drive that has enough storage space available. You don’t want to be in a situation where you run out of space.
With that being said, you also don’t want overspend and purchase a drive that you are never going to fill. Take some time to think about the application of the hard drive and go for something that has adequate storage space for your needs.
So, let’s take a look at the range of Seagate’s exceptional hard drives. We’ll also include their uses, specialisations, and what they should be used for.
Seagate BarraCuda
The Seagate BarraCuda is a hard drive for personal computing and will help boost your workstation. The Barracuda comes provides performance that take your laptop and desktop to the next level.
The Seagate BarraCuda 2.5″
The Barracuda with a 2.5″ form factor is suited for use in devices such as Laptops, external devices and small form factor hardware.
The Seagate BarraCuda 3.5″
For the 3.5″ form factor it is excellent for desktop & all-in-one storage. It’s also adequate for home servers, plus DAS devices as well.
Seagate BarraCuda Pro
For the Seagate Barracuda Pro, it comes with elements that make it excellent for high-performance desktops. Plus, it’s suitable for DAS devices, gaming, and creative pro desktop apps.
Why Should you Use the Barracuda Hard Drives?
These drives are great for general computer usage thanks to their low cost and fast spinning disk
Since it’s built on proven innovation and reliability, the BarraCuda drives come with a versatile combination of price point and capacity options. And for convenience, these combinations are made to fit any budget.
If you think about it, it’s quite impossible to engage in conversations about hard drives without citing Seagate’s BarraCuda collection. It’s generally not difficult to see why their BarraCuda drives provide outstanding Gigabyte per dollar ratios. Plus, they also offer speed benefits to top things off.
The 2TB model hits a sweet spot by creating a balance between high-performance and affordability. Since this drive combines high-density and 7,200rpm platters data, computers outfitted with this drive can read data extraordinarily fast.
Seagate IronWolf
Since Seagate knows everyone’s distinct data storage concerns, they produced both the IronWolf and IronWolf Pro. These are network-attached storage (NAS) hard drives that assist you in achieving all your tasks. The IronWolf is specifically designed for NAS products.
Designed for multi-user environments, plus boosted workload rates, these hard drives for your NAS are upgraded with a number of features. First, the NAS drives are improved using AgileArray technology. It’s necessary for optimum reliability, as well as system scalability.
Since Seagate IronWolf drive is specifically for NAS products, it’s packed with a couple of distinct yet useful features. These aren’t common on standard internal hard drives which makes things better. The available features allow the drive to perform efficiently at all times. It’s despite having huge amounts of data coming and going while keeping power consumption low.
Not only that, IronWolf can accommodate high workloads and vibration rates of increased data networks in a multi-bay NAS setting. Both IronWolf and IronWolf Pro keeps everything on schedule with 24/7 backup, remote access, and file sharing.
Seagate IronWolf
This drive is excellent for home, small business NAS, and SOHO.
Seagate IronWolf Pro
The Seagate IronWold Pro is perfect for small to large businesses.
Why Should you Use the IronWolf Hard Drives?
One of the reasons to use the IronWolf hard drives is that they’re ready for RAID. Another reason to use the IronWolf drives is that these are capable of functioning at fast 7200 RPM spin rate 24/7. They offer excellent longevity, so worrying about drive failure won’t be necessary.
So if you are running a NAS for your home or business, the Seagate IronWolf is yo ur best bet.
Seagate SkyHawk
The SkyHawk drives are excellent for SMB surveillance DVR & NVR. They offer outstanding analytics, plus reliability even in harsh environments.
This surveillance-enhanced Seagate SkyHawk hard drive provides remarkable image integrity. It’s also among the best in the market designed to keep surveillance systems longer. Plus, it decreases the need for post-deployment assistance.
Supported by the ImagePerfect firmware, SkyHawk is a purpose-designed surveillance solution with a ton of features to enhance your experience.
The ImagePerfect firmware backs larger cache memories that allow enhanced buffering and caching for increased video streams. The bigger cache will aid in optimising the write performance via sequencing data that are written to HDD media.
This results in lesser physical read/write head movements between reading or writing HDD media to and fro. Together, this means increased HDD reliability.
The company designed this drive to help with your distinct surveillance issues and challenges. The drive supports up to 64HD cameras plus 32 extra AI streams. It provides capacities of up to 16TB and sends zero dropped frames plus ImagePerfect AI. Lastly, it offers enterprise-class load rates at 550TB/year for increased reliability.
SkyHawk
The SkyHawk hard drive is perfect for small to large business surveillance DVR and NVR.
SkyHawk AI
The SkyHawk AI is ideal for AI-surveillance NVR.
Why Should You Use Seagate SkyHawk?
SkyHawk and SkyHawk AI drives give a lot of reasons as to why you should use them for surveillance solutions. First of all, they offer high capacity, excellent speeds, and efficiency in RAID arrays.
The standard version lasts for three years with 24/7 use, while the AI version lasts for five years. Its sensor compensates for the vibration in the array’s other hard drives.
SkyHawk surveillance drives work with an extreme workload rating and consume low power. It offers long-term reliability and operates in harsh environments, enduring various temperature ranges.
Seagate FireCuda
With the FireCuda, Seagate targets gamers who want faster loading times than their large HDDs without giving up capacity. Usually, gamers transfer large files then leave these, which make it best for them to use a high-performance gaming drive.
With the FireCuda, get to play and work faster simultaneously. It drives the newest NAND flash technology with a classic hard drive for a compact mix of capacity and speed.
Its speed goes up to 5x faster than your usual hard drives, and it’s all supported by a 5-year warranty. The FireCuda offers top-notch performance, unlike your regular hard drives. However, it does deliver high capacity options that is much expected from this kind of hard drive solution.
Technically, it is an ideal upgrade for creative professionals, gamers, PC enthusiasts, and the like.
FireCuda’s load speeds are faster for unlimited performance and play. With that, you can save time since it only takes seconds to boot. With FireCuda, you can get in the game faster by five times compared to conventional hard drives.
Why Should You Use the FireCuda Hard Drives?
One of the reasons why you should use the FireCuda hard drives is that it comes with a limited 5-year warranty. It beats most competing drive warranties that offer only 2 to 3 years. It’s a highly reliable product that provides excellent features, durability, high performance, and reliability.
The FireCuda offers efficient power savings that allow you to potentially reduce your overall costs. Tuned for performance, FireCuda’s 2.5-inch hard drives are highly capable of drawing less power than competitors’ drives. With less consumed power and generated heat, system performance improves, especially when gaming or running multiple apps.
Summary
To wrap up our Seagate buyer’s guide, Seagate offers a wide range of hard drives for different uses. With that, you have a plethora of options to choose from.
You only need to note what your requirements are such as the capacity, speed, the warranty, etc. It’s to ensure that you get the best out of the hard drive you choose.