I’m always running out of storage, and while I finally did something about it this year – I switched to a 100TB server – it’s getting to the point where I’ll need hard drives in the next year or so. Will need to take. With the HDD size increasing considerably, I decided to use 18TB and 24TB drives in my NAS, but a secondary NAS (a DiskStation DS1019+) that is now used to back up important data (photos, documents, etc.). is being used for going strong, and has 12TB and 16TB Iron Wolf drives.

The DS1019+ has been in continuous use for the past five years, and the IronWolf drives housed inside are close to 40,000 hours of use. When I reset the NAS in 2019, I had no idea the drives would last this long, and it’s great to see the HDDs exceed Seagate’s usage limits. Even though this NAS is no longer being used as a primary server, I still have a lot of valuable data on it (thankfully backed up elsewhere), and I’m just interested in looking at it now. Keep track of how long these drives last.

If you have a home server and are thinking about getting additional drives, the 12TB IronWolf HDD I’m using is Now down to $199 on Amazon.. The same went down last year, but the deal is gone at retailers, and if so, you can get Same discount at Newegg And B&H photo.

I think the 8TB IronWolf is a great starting point if you don’t need a lot of storage, and the drive is a good choice if you have a 2-bay NAS. There is a drive Now down to $149.That’s $10 more than last year, but still a decent savings of $30 off the retail price. The 12TB drive is my go-to recommendation, and I’ve used four of them to good effect over the past five years.

16TB is the IronWolf Pro. Dropped again to $249.and if you’re considering this drive, I’d recommend upgrading to the 24TB model instead, which is a Better deal at $399. With 24TB of storage on one drive, you don’t have to worry about storage for years.

Regardless of which type of storage you get, all IronWolf drives come with long-term reliability, spin at 7200rpm, and include custom software with vibration resistance—a must in a NAS server. . gave 12TB IronWolf HDD for $199 It’s my choice because of the value you get, but I’ve also used the 16TB variant, and I’m starting with the 22TB option now.