IronWolf Pro: First Seagate HDD with 18TB launch in market

IronWolf Pro HDD with 18 TB launch

Western Digital has submitted and offers with 18 TB the currently highest storage capacity with conventional hard drives (HDD). It was only a matter of time before rivals Seagate followed suit.

Traders betray unannounced HDD

The Reddit user u/VarHyid has drawn attention to the entries of the previously not officially announced Seagate HDD at various retailers. The Seagate IronWolf Pro with 18 TB carries the identification ST18000NE000, which can be found on other shop pages. Several retailers call 18 September 2020 for availability, so a market launch is likely next month. A price of about 500 Euros is indicated.

Like the sister models, the new Iron Wolf Pro series for network storage (NAS) will use a conventional recording method (CMR) and 7,200 rev/min. The cache is listed as 256 MB in trade, but Seagate’s websites do not contain any information about this model.

So far only Western Digital offers 18 TB

So far, 3.5-inch hard drives with 18 TB storage volume are only available from Western Digital in the enterprise series WD Gold and Ultrastar DC HC550 at prices of currently around 460 Euro and 490 Euro respectively. For both, Western Digital is using energy-assisted PMR (ePMR) for the first time to increase data density. How Seagate increases the capacity of the IronWolf Pro to 18 TB, we still have to find out.