Seagate Launches First 12 TB Drive for Massive Consumption

Seagate is making a new milestone in the consumer storage space by offering the first 1 TB hard drive for both the BarraCuda Pro series and IronWolf.

Seagate announces the BarraCuda Pro and IronWolf 12 TB disk

Seagate, Seagate Launches First 12 TB Drive for Massive Consumption, Optocrypto

This is not the first 12 TB hard drive we’ve seen, drives this capacity already sold in the business sector, but if it is the first one that is available for mass consumption.

Consumer drives lack some of the advanced (and costly) reliability features found in the business unit, but the BarraCuda Pro ($ 530 on Amazon) is still a hard drive to rely on, thanks to its 5 years warranty. The 3.5-inch drive spins at 7,200 rpm speed, with a considerable 256 MB cache. Below we can see a comparison with 10 TB and 8 TB models.

Comparative Barracuda Pro 12 TB – 10 TB – 8 TB

Seagate, Seagate Launches First 12 TB Drive for Massive Consumption, Optocrypto

Basically, the features are similar, and even the Barracuda Pro of 12 TB would be somewhat faster than its smaller brothers.

Seagate, Seagate Launches First 12 TB Drive for Massive Consumption, Optocrypto

The 12 TB IronWolf models ($ 576 Amazon) are designed for use in network-attached storage bays such as Synology’s DiskStation ($ 300 on Amazon). IronWolf’s disk drives include reliability features such as disk integrity management and error recovery control software as well as rotational vibration sensors to maintain optimized performance on multi-disk systems.

In a time when 1 or 2 TB disks are already falling short for a computer, welcome to these large capacity drives.

New Seagate Barracuda Pro 12 TB

If with 10 TB it seemed that we were going to have space left on all sides, now we see that it is renewed the range with one of the hard disks with more capacity of the moment – at the expense of Samsung that has prepared one of 16 TB. This new Seagate hard drive will have a speed of 7200 RPM and a cache of 256 MB.

In short, it’s almost exactly the same hard drive they released last year only with more cache and 2 TB more capacity. We also offer a 5-year warranty.

12 TB HDD Enterprise Capacity From Seagate

The use to which this hard disk is focused is for professionals, as well indicated on its web page. For example, to save videos in the highest resolution possible recorded with a professional camera or DSLR, but still remain far from the capabilities of hard drives of film cameras: 20 Terabytes SSD that have prices in excess of ten thousand euros.

What other alternatives do we have to this new 12 TB Barracuda Pro?

This hard drive will cost around $ 350, and we know it is not one for all audiences, so we found few alternatives, but we found them.

The other brands that rely on such amount of storage are Western Digital, another company well-known of the sector with until 10 TB of capacity, or StarTech. If we want to find hard disks with more capacity we have to look for external hard disks for professionals, up to 20 TB with a price above 2000 euros.

Seagate BarraCuda Pro 12TB Specifications

  • Model Numbers: ST12000DM0007
  • Bytes per Sector: 512
  • Interface: SATA 6Gb/s
  • Max. Sustained Transfer Rate: 250MB/s
  • Cache: 256MB
  • Platter Configuration: Eight platters, Areal density 923 Gb/in2 avg.
  • Load/Unload Cycles: 300,000
  • Nonrecoverable Read Errors per Bits Read Max: 1 per 10E15
  • Power-On Hours per Year (24×7): 8760
  • Workload Rate Limit (TB/year): 300
  • Limited Warranty (years): 5
  • Startup Power (A): 1.8
  • Operating Mode, Typical (W): 7.8
  • Idle Average (W): 5.0
  • Standby Mode/Sleep Mode, Typical (W): 0.80
  • Operating (ambient, min): 0°C
  • Operating (drive case, max): 60°C
  • Nonoperating (ambient): – 40°C – 70°C
  • Halogen Free: Yes
  • RoHS Compliance: Yes
  • Height: 26.11mm
  • Width: 101.85mm
  • Depth: 146.99mm
  • Weight: 705g