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WD states that OptiNAND drives can secure more than 100MB of write cache data in the event of an unplanned power loss, a 50X improvement over standard drives that can flush about 2MB. Hybrid Drive media is not new, but whereas older generation hybrid drives were more parallel in architecture, this is far more intertwined. It also brings enhancements to the firmware algorithm and system-on-a-chip (SoC). Once again, to be clear, OptiNAND and its iNAND isn’t flash cache (such as the 512MB this drive also features). Rather, it’s a portion of flash memory used to store metadata–or data about existing data–so they can be managed more efficiently. It is important to be aware of the drive’s form factor, with 3.5” being the most common for the best HDDs (this is the only type we cover). If you need 2.5”, your options are more limited, especially for capacity. Otherwise, your computer case’s ability to house a certain number of 3.5” drives might be your primary limitation.
While HAMR will enable rapid growth for Seagate's HDD capacities in the coming years, the company continues to refine its hard drives featuring perpendicular/conventional magnetic recording (CMR/PMR) and shingled magnetic recording (SMR) technologies. Either in Q1 or Q2 the company will release its 10-platter CMR/PMR HDDs with 2.2TB disks and a 22TB capacity. SMR version of such drives will further increase capacity to 24TB for those willing to use shingled magnetic recording. The WD Gold 22TB features the same 2.5-million-hour MTBF rating as the other higher capacity models as well as vibration protection technology and a low power draw due to HelioSeal technology. As far as power management goes, the 22TB model has a slightly higher average operational draw at 7.1W compared to the 20TB model; however, its idling is an improved 5.7W. Hard disk drives are cheap and offer plenty of capacity but they are bound to disappear in a not-so-distant future. Right now, the biggest portable hard disk drive has a capacity of 5TB; it uses a special drive that is slightly bigger than a standard laptop HDD which has a width of 2.5-inch and a height of 7mm. Now, before I move on to the NAS testing. It is worth highlighting a couple of important factors with regard to the WD Red Pro 22TB and the support available from each NAS brand I am focusing on for the testing. Now, Synology is the ONLY NAS brand in the market that also has its own first-party HDDs available to users too. These are Originally Toshiba Enterprise-grade produced hard disks that have had a Synology-specific firmware applied to them. Now, why is this relevant? Well, because some larger-scale Synology products in 2022 onwards do not list other 3rd Party HDDs as compatible. Even then, if you look up some of the older 2020 released NAS drives currently in the market (such as the DS920+ for example), they DO list HDDs from the likes of Western Digital (and their WD Red, Ultrastar and Gold series) BUT they do not list drives larger than 18TB at the time of writing. This is an odd stance by the brand, when larger-scale 20TB and 22TB hard drives are available in the market and designed for NAS. The right choice depends on various factors, including what you intend to store and transfer, and the volume of data involved. Whether you're upgrading your laptop's hard drive or equipping a network-attached storage (NAS) device with a high-speed option, understanding the nuances of different drives is crucial.Finally, I conducted a straightforward transfer onto the HDD using Windows File Explorer. This was done with a folder filled with a little over 22.8GB of mixed file types and volumes (2,282 files across 72 folders). This transfer took a fraction over 2 mins 20 secs (5 sec margin of error): Our first throughput test measures 4K random performance. Here, the WD Gold 22TB posted 107,303 IOPS in reads and 4,730 IOPS write (SMB). In comparison, the 12TB WD Ultrastar was able to reach 107,884 IOPS read and 5,600 IOPS write. Nevertheless, you can still push through this warning and proceed to testing the performance of the WD Red Pro 22TB HDD from within the Synology Storage Manager. Here was the results.
With average latency at 8K 70/30 using a Synology DS1821+, the 22TB Gold 22TB posted 11.26ms through 619.27ms in SMB, while iSCSI recorded a range of 7.57ms through 150.39ms. These last tests are important as not only is the WD Red Pro 22TB HDD designed for NAS use, but also at the time of writing neither brand lists this hard drive as compatible. There is more to this though that I will touch on later. One common question is, " Is an SSD a hard drive?" While many might call an SSD (Solid State Drive) a hard drive out of habit, an SSD is quite different from a traditional HDD (Hard Disk Drive) with spinning platters in terms of design and performance. Without going too deep into the ' SSD vs HDD' debate, in essense, SSDs offer faster data access and are more durable due to the absence of moving parts, but typically have lower maximum storage capacities than HDDs and are more expensive. For instance, finding an SSD over 8TB can be challenging, while HDDs, while slower, can have capacities of 20TB or even more. The next test was using ATTO disk benchmark and this one was using a 1GB and 4GB test file in the same windows PC test environment. However, this test was focused more on the IOPS. The random 4K operations of a hard drive will typically be hugely dwarfed by those of HDDs, but enterprise HDDs and pro series drives still tend to rate noticeably higher than domestic HDD and standard class NAS HDDs on this score. In average latency, the WD Gold hit read and writes of 2.384ms and 54.11ms, respectively, while the 12TB WD Ultrastar posted 2.372ms read and 45.7ms write.Details about the extent of our regulation by the Financial Conduct Authority are available from us on request.
While this certainly makes them a perfect fit for enterprise-level data centers, they are also a great choice for SMBs that need to store huge amounts of data and for those who want to future-proof their repository (capacity-wise). So, it made sense for us to see what it is capable of outputting using some of the leading desktop (or SMB) NAS form factors. The most common use for hard drives, though, is simple file transfers. Our DiskBench test estimates transfer performance with a real-world workload that is useful for calculating how long a transfer could take. Hard drives have consistent performance and will hit their maximum sustained speed at QD1 with large enough I/O, which is illustrated in our ATTO benchmark results. This is particularly useful for showing differences in technology and capacity as drives get bigger and faster. As usual, we used the DSM Storage Manager app to manage the WD Gold populated-DS1821+. It also makes it incredibly easy to set up RAID, pools, and volumes as well as to view the health of the drive. The Seagate 60TB SSD that was launched in 2016. It was a prototype but we don't know whether it was sold. I approached Seagate in May 2023 to find out what happened to it.
Setup and Configuration
Beyond sheer size, other factors such as the fastest hard drive and fastest SSD speed, as well as overall performance, play a critical role in our evaluation. Our guide also touches upon the best external hard drive and best portable SSD options available, ensuring that you find a balance between capacity, speed, and portability.
Most systems default to WCE, which can increase host/software overhead if there’s a need to ensure data integrity, and the risk of critical data loss is a significant factor to consider as well. While only 128MB of iNAND is reserved for power loss metadata, user data in DRAM is also protected as it can be written to flash during sudden power loss with the use of the remaining rotational energy of the spinning disks. ArmorCache can also be disabled in WCE mode for specific environments if desired. While many think that SSDs are the better storage option, HDDs still have a lot of life left and truth be told, power the cloud. Tossing 100 of these drives in a JBOD for instance will show some pretty impressive performance (roughly 30GB/s). As a result, the WD Gold 22TB HDDs are ideal for MSPs, cloud providers, and enterprises that need to have a massive amount of data conveniently available. Combining the WD Gold 22TB drives with the DS1821+ creates a huge potential storage repository for SMBs via a small physical footprint. While this might be a more specialized use case (as most businesses won’t likely this amount of storage in an 8-bay NAS), small professional offices like architects or content creation companies might start out with 4 or 5 of the WD 22TB drives, with the other bays available for expansion when needed. And yes we know, WD Red Pros would be preferred here, but we don’t have them in the lab.The WD Gold 22TB is a great addition to the company’s already extensive enterprise hard drive lineup, offering the industry’s highest areal density at 2.2TB per platter (alongside the WD Red for NAS solutions and WD Purple for surveillance setups). The extra 2TB in capacity over the 20TB HDDs certainly adds up if you’re using pallet-fulls of these drives in your data center. Our next test shifts focus from a pure 8K sequential 100% read/write scenario to a mixed 8K 70/30 workload, which will demonstrate how performance scales in a setting from 2T/2Q up to 16T/16Q. In all tests except max latency, the WD Gold 22TB started off a bit behind the 12TB WD Ultrastar in the initial stages; however, it showed noticeably better-sustained performance when approaching the terminal queue depths. WD’s unique OptiNAND-enabled ArmorCache technology combines the performance of write cache enabled mode with the data protection of write cache disabled mode without having to compromise by choosing between the two. material/labor costs worldwide have spiked also which keeps cost up a but. Ssds have less material overall. Moving on to the max latency, the WD Gold recorded just 9.539ms read and 153ms write. In comparison, we saw the 12TB WD Ultrastar hit 403.113ms read and 114ms write.
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