- About the Ironwolf 16TB NAS HDDs...
- How its tested??
- AS SSD Benchmark
- ATTO Benchmark
- Futuremark Benchmark
- AIDA64 Disk Access Test
- IOMETER Benchmark
- Transfer Tests
- Concluding Remarks
- Online Purchase Links
Disclosure: The Ironwolf 16TB NAS HDD is loaned by Seagate
About the Ironwolf 16TB and its functions…
This is the SEAGATE Ironwolf 16TB NAS-specific mechanical drive. This variant provides 14.5TB of usable storage. The earlier reviewed Ironwolf 14TB provides 12.7 TB of storage. This is the highest capacity NAS storage drive that Seagate is providing at the time of writing.
Earlier, I’ve tested the Seagate IRONWOLF 14TB NAS HDD. This is the SEAGATE Ironwolf 16TB NAS drive, a +2TB variant. The housing of the drive is intentionally different from the housing of conventional HDDs as it contains helium. You can read the explanation of it from here.
Ironwolf Specific Features
Typical of the Ironwolf NAS drive series, the SEAGATE IRONWOLF 16TB ST16000VN001 HDD carries 3 years warranty with a spindle speed of 7,200 RPM. These are marketed for Home, SOHO and small business NAS drives, typically up to 8 bays. It comes with a plethora of NAS-specific functions. Its in-house Ironwolf Health Management (IHM) is a 1up from S.M.A.R.T. functions. This emphasis on Prevention, Intervention and Recovery. To use IHM, it needs to work with IHM-enabled NAS units. At the time of writing, it listed ASUSTOR, QNAP, OSAN, Synology, Terra Master and Thecus. There is no support for desktop systems, nor FreeNAS functions- yet.
Apart from the firmware integrations, it does use RV sensors and made to handle vibrations, high workloads in tightly packed 8-bay NAS units. Since NAS units are horizontally stacked with a small/mid-size low profile fan behind it, it is important for these drives to function and tolerate reasonably high temperatures.
Storage Capacity and Specifications
At the time of writing, the ST16000VN001 is the only 16TB listed Ironwolf drive.
Specifications 16 TB Capacity 16 TB Standard Model Number ST16000VN001 Interface SATA 6Gb/s Features and Performance
Drive Bays Supported 1 – 8 Bays Multi-User Technology 180 TB/year Rotational Vibration (RV) Sensor Yes Dual-Plane Balance Yes Error Recovery Control Yes Max. Sustained Transfer Rate OD (MB/s) 210MB/s Spindle Speed (RPM) 7,200 Cache (MB) 256 Reliability
1 Load/Unload Cycles 600,000 Non-recoverable Read Errors Rate, Max 1 per 10E15 Power-on Hours 8,760 Workload Rate Limit (WRL) 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) 7.3 W Idling Average (W) 5.3 W Standby Mode/Sleep Mode, Typical (W) 0.8/0.8 Voltage Tolerance, Inc. Noise (5 V) ±5% Voltage Tolerance, Inc. Noise (12 V) ±10% Environmental/Temperature
Operating (ambient, min °C) 5 2 Operating (drive case, max °C) 70 Non-operating (ambient, min °C) -40 Non-operating (ambient max °C) 70 Halogen-free Yes Environmental/Shock
Shock, Operating/Non-operating: 2 ms (max) 50Gs/200Gs Environmental/Acoustics 3 Idle (typical) 2.8 bels Seek (typical) 3.0bels Physical
Height (mm/in) 26.11 mm/1.028 in Width (mm/in, max) 101.85 mm/4.01 in Depth (mm/in, max) 146.99 mm/5.787 in Weight (g/lb, typical) 670 g/1.477 lb 
It is advertised with multi-user optimisation spec of up to 180TB per year and Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) of up to 1 million hours. Obviously, to evaluate this claim is more dependent on the usage, read/write intensity and time.
