By: Jonathan Kwan
January 26, 2018
Does it blow your mind how much data we are generating nowadays? While our Microsoft Word documents may be getting larger, or you have an ever-growing collection of photos thanks to high quality smartphone cameras, the elephant in the room is the amount of power we have in our hands to generate ridiculously large video files. Think about it: Every respectable modern smartphone can capture video at 4K resolution, and with these 4K videos come a large demand for storage. I recently shot a three and a half minute video on my Apple iPhone X at 4K, and the 50Mbps default bitrate meant I was left with a whopping 1.25GB file. Even if I converted it using the H.265 codec with reasonably high compression at reasonably high quality, a 25Mbps stream would have netted me with a still massive 625MB file. Thankfully, the storage industry is ahead of the game, where the word "massive" is rather tame in describing their storage capacity nowadays. This includes the Seagate BarraCuda Pro ST12000DM0007 12TB I reviewed back in December 2017 and the IronWolf Pro ST12000NE0007 12TB I wrote about in the first review of the year. Today, we will take a look at the third and final 12TB model of the trio, the IronWolf ST12000VN0007 12TB. Compared to the IronWolf Pro 12TB, the warranty is shorter, the workload rating is a lower, and it is not supposed to play in NAS systems beyond eight drives. But what you will get is an extra $40 in your pocket to spend on other things. Is the sacrifice worth it? Read on to find out!
As it was in our last review of the Seagate BarraCuda Pro ST12000DM0007 12TB and IronWolf ST12000VN0007 12TB, a medium sized, brown corrugated cardboard box containing our Seagate IronWolf ST12000VN0007 12TB was sent from the company's American headquarters in Cupertino, California, USA via MJR Print and Fulfillment, a local print shop. Seagate has always shipped to us with MJR Print and Fulfillment. Using UPS Saver, the package arrived on our doorstep here in Calgary, Alberta, Canada in excellent condition for our review today.
The Seagate IronWolf ST12000VN0007 12TB traveled along with its corporate cousins, the Seagate IronWolf Pro ST12000NE0007 12TB and Seagate BarraCuda Pro ST12000DM0007 12TB; both of which I have previously reviewed. Although the Seagate IronWolf ST12000VN0007 12TB only came in an OEM anti-static bag, there was a ton of bubble wrap inside to keep these OEM packaged drives safe and sound throughout the entire journey. When I say a lot, I really mean a lot. To ensure adequate protection for fragile, mechanical devices like these, they definitely went all the way. To be honest, I have never purchased a hard drive that is not in OEM packaging in the past, so experienced online shoppers will find this a relatively familiar sight.
Keeping this in mind, before we move on, let us take a look at the specifications of the Seagate IronWolf ST12000VN0007 12TB, as obtained from the manufacturer's website:
Specifications
Standard Model Numbers: ST12000VN0007
Interface: SATA 6Gb/s
Features and Performance
Number of Drive Bays Supported: 1 to 8
Multi-User Technology (TB/yr): 180
Rotational Vibration (RV) Sensors: Yes
Dual-Plane Balance: Yes
Error Recovery Control: Yes
Max Sustained Data Transfer Rate OD (MB/s): 210MB/s
Spindle Speed (RPM): 7200
Cache (MB): 256
Reliability/Data Integrity
Load/Unload Cycles: 600,000
Nonrecoverable Read Errors per Bits Read, Max: 1 per 10E15
Power-On Hours (per year): 8760
Workload Rate Limit (WRL) (TB/year): 180
Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) (hours): 1,000,000
Limited Warranty (years): 3
Power Management
Startup Current, Typical (12V,A): 1.8
Average Operating Power (W): 7.8W
Idle Average (W): 5W
Standby Mode/Sleep Mode, Typical (W): 0.8/0.8
Voltage Tolerance (5V): ±5%
Voltage Tolerance (12V): ±10 %
Environmental/Temperature
Temperature (°C)
- Operating (ambient, min): 5
- Operating (drive case, max): 70
- Nonoperating (ambient, min): –40
- Nonoperating (ambient, max): 70
Halogen Free: Yes
Environmental/Shock
Shock, Operating/Nonoperating: 2ms (max, Gs): 70Gs/250Gs
Environmental/Acoustics
- Idle (typical): 2.8bels
- Operating (typical): 3.2bels
Physical
Height (mm/in, max): 26.11mm/1.028in
Width (mm/in, max): 101.85mm/4.01in
Depth (mm/in, max): 146.99mm/5.787in
Weight (g/lb, typical): 705g/1.55lb
Carton Unit Quantity: 20
Cartons per Pallet/Cartons per Layer: 40/8
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. A Closer Look, Test System
3. Benchmark: AIDA64 Disk Benchmark
4. Benchmark: ATTO Disk Benchmark
5. Benchmark: Crystal Disk Mark 3.0
6. Benchmark: HD Tach 3.0.1.0
7. Benchmark: HD Tune Pro 4.60
8. Benchmark: PassMark PerformanceTest 9.0
9. Benchmark: PCMark 7
10. NAS Performance, Power Consumption
11. Conclusion
