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Storage is a big concern for professionals and non-professionals. When saving too many documents, videos, photos, and apps on your PC you run the risk of slowing down the system. In the worst-case scenario, your system could fail, and you lose everything.
A simple, secure, and cost-effective solution is an for your PC. These hard drives free up on your PC so that your system can run faster and more efficiently. There is a range of different internal hard drives, but today, we are going to compare the and All of the specifics will be placed in a comparison chart and before the final verdict, there will be some additional pros and cons.
For the sake of this article, we will be looking at the 4TB hard drives that are designed for RAID networks/NAS environments. Both the Seagate IronWolf and the WD Red NAS hard drives come in other sizes from 1TB to 14TB.
Western Digital Red and Seagate Videos
Start your hard drive investigation by viewing these very short but informative Western Digital and Seagate videos.
The videos are:
- Western Digital Red – Product Overview
- Family
- Seagate Drives Explained
Let’s continue by looking at what the Seagate IronWolf and the WD Red have in common.
Seagate IronWolf and WD Red – Similarities
Quick Glance
NAS Environments
The Seagate IronWolf and the WD Red are able to connect up to 8 bays. They are powerful hard drives that are designed to work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Both are suitable for home use and small businesses.
Workload Rate
The workload rate is the amount of data a user can transfer to or from the in the space of a year. The and the have a workload of 180 TB/yr. This might vary slightly depending on your software and hardware.
Interface
With the SATA 6.0 Gb/s, the bandwidth supports up to 600MB/s. It’s a backward-compatible interface and you will need to buy a SATA cable, or have a spare one.
Form Factor
The form factor is the size of the space that you will need inside your PC to install the hard drives. These internal hard drives have a 3.5-inch form factor. However, if you don’t have an empty 3.5-inch bay in your PC, adaptors are available.
Compatibility
These two 4TB internal hard drives will work on Windows and Mac, however, you might have to reformat your Mac depending on system requirements and software versions.
MTBF
This stands for Mean Time Before Failure. You can expect up to one million hours before having any issue with the Seagate IronWolf or the WD Red. They have a power-on rating of up to 8,760 hours per year. This, along with the warranty, is a testimony to their reliability.
Warranty
Both the Seagate IronWolf and the WD Red come with a 3-year limited warranty, which is longer than most warranties for internal hard drives.
With quite a few similar features, it may come as a surprise that there are still plenty of differences.
Differences Between Seagate IronWolf and WD Red
Appearance
They are practically identical in size, which would make sense as they have the same form factor. They are quite different in their style.
Seagate IronWolf
The dimensions are 5.78 x 4 x 1.03 inches and it weighs 1.34 pounds. The hard drive is green, black, and red with the striking IronWolf logo in the middle.
WD Red
It is red and black with the signature hexagon design from WD. It is 5.79 x 4 x 1.03 inches and it weighs 1.30 pounds.
The Winner Is- A Tie
Read Next – Seagate Barracuda vs WD Blue: Which Internal Hard Drive is Better?
Revolutions Per Minute
This is an important specification because it relates to the of the . Inside a , there is a disk that springs. The RPM states the number of times this disk spins.
Seagate IronWolf
The RPM of the Seagate IronWolf 4TB hard drive is 5,900RPM.
WD Red
Here, the RPM is 5,400, so, slightly less than the Seagate IronWolf but still considered average.
The Winner Is- The Seagate IronWolf
Read next – WD Black vs Seagate Barracuda: Which Hard Drive is Better?
The Cache
The size of the cache will also impact the speed at which you can transfer data. The cache is where the data is temporarily saved while data is being transferred.
Seagate IronWolf
It’s surprisingly quite small, at just 64MB.
WD Red
The size of the cache is more like what you would expect from looking at hard drives of these qualities. The cache is 256MB.
The Winner Is- The WD Red
Read next – WD Red vs Gold: Which Western Digital is Better?
Software
Aside from the specifics regarding speed and storage, the buyer’s decision may often come down to the software that the hard drive comes with.
Seagate IronWolf
It comes with IronWolf Health, which is a drive health monitoring system. It will automatically display prevention and intervention operations for the hard drive. There is optional data recovery tool, but it isn’t included. With AgileArray firmware built on AcuTrac technology, the NAS-optimized hard drive is tolerant to vibrations.
WD Red
The WD Red comes with NASware 3.0 technology. This will increase the compatibility with other devices such as TVs and stereos. For your business, this software allows for seamless integration with existing networks, making it easier to share and backup your files. It also comes with 3D Active Balance Plus to reduce the noise and vibrations from the NAS system. It will also reduce the degradation of the hard drive over the years.
The Winner Is- A Tie
Value for Money
It’s not just about the price. Value for money includes the warranty, the specifics, and the software that comes with an internal hard drive. Most NAS internal hard drives sit around the $100 mark.
Seagate IronWolf
It is right on the average price mark and the 3-year limited warranty does add to its value.
WD Red
It is a little more expensive but not enough to affect our decision. Again, the 3-year limited warranty is attractive compared with the usual.
The Winner Is- The Seagate IronWolf
Read next – WD Red vs Black: Which Western Digital is Better?
Pros and Cons
Next, we have some pros and cons of the Seagate Iron Wolf and WD Red 4TB internal hard drives.
Seagate IronWolf
Pros:
- It’s whisper quiet and the is great too
- There is plenty of information about the temperature and load averages
- The hard drive comes with an authentication code
Cons:
- There has been a lot feedback regarding 4TB internal hard drives being dead on arrival, but they allow replacement
WD Red
Pros:
- Although the RPM is slightly lower, the cache is much larger, and the hard drive is more responsive
- It’s fast and relatively quiet
- Installation was easy on both Windows and Mac
Cons:
- It doesn’t come with any screws or clips for your installation
Seagate IronWolf and WD Red Infographic: Similarities and Differences
Choosing the right hard drive is not an easy task and we hope to help by providing this infographic that details some of the similarities and differences between these two hard drives. This infographic boils it down so that you can quickly make the decision that is best for you.
Important Warranty Information
The best way to latest and most up to date product warranty information is to submit a warranty question to Amazon customer service.
Click here to find out how.
This information will always supersede the information that is displayed here on this site.
The Final Verdict
After listening to a lot of feedback, we noticed one thing that frequently cropped up, and that was the warrant for both the Seagate IronWolf and the WD Red. You need to make sure that you buy the internal hard drive from a legitimate vendor and stay away from third-party sellers. This was you will ensure your warranty is valid.
The RPM of the two hard drives was very similar. The appearance was also not a factor that we took into consideration as it wasn’t a product we would be looking at. When installing the Seagate IronWolf and the WD Red, we thought they were both straightforward as long as you have the right equipment. Both worked very well, even with up to 8 bays in use.
The one area that the Seagate IronWolf did excel was with the drive health monitoring. It was very handy being able to keep an eye on how the hard drive is working.
The WD Red has a much larger cache. This made the hard drive more responsive when in use. It seemed like there was less effort required, and even faster.
After looking at the specifics and the pros and cons, we felt that the WD Red was the better internal hard drive. The difference in cost was very little and overall, the WD Red was more reliable. The NASware 3.0 technology made it much more convenient to connect with other devices. Once again, WD has delivered a great product that is durable and efficient while still being great value for money.
Last update on 2022-05-18 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API