Seagate has announced the company's highest capacity conventional magnetic recording (CMR) hard drive today at the NAB 2023 conference. The highly-anticipated IronWolf Pro 22TB has hit the retail market for $399.99, substantially below the drive's $599.99 MSRP.
While SSDs are getting faster and bigger, hard drives are still the most affordable medium for storing large amounts of data. Seagate's IronWolf Pro drives, which cater to network-attached-storage (NAS) and direct-attached-storage (DAS) devices, are one of the more popular options on the market. The manufacturer has expanded the IronWolf Pro lineup to 22TB, offering consumers even more storage for their precious data.
The IronWolf Pro 22TB (ST22000NT001) arrives in a conventional 3.5-inch form factor with a SATA III connector to communicate with the host system. The helium-filled hard drive comprises ten platters and 20 accompanying heads. IronWolf Pro 22TB, which features a spindle speed of 7,200 RPM, wields a 512MB cache and delivers maximum sustained transfer rates of up to 285 MB/s. In addition, the drive flaunts user workload rates of up to 550TB per year. The IronWolf Pro 22TB is 7.5% faster and has an 83.3% higher WRL than the WD Red Pro 22TB.
The IronWolf Pro 22TB sports rotational vibration (RV) sensors into the IronWolf Pro 22TB to mitigate vibration. The drive idles at 20 dBA, but the noise level jumps to around 26 dbA during active seek operations. On paper, it's quieter than the WD Red Pro 22TB. However, the IronWolf Pro 22TB gets audible under heavy workloads as the noise level oscillates between 30 dBA and 34 dBA.
The idle and active power consumption on the IronWolf Pro 22TB is 6W and 7.9W, respectively. It consumes almost twice as much power at idle than the WD Red Pro 22TB. The IronWolf Pro 22TB's active power draw is 16.2% higher too.
| Header Cell - Column 0 | WD Gold 22TB | IronWolf Pro 22TB | WD Red Pro 22TB | WD Purple Pro 22TB |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Max. Sustained Transfer Rate (MB/s) | 291 | 285 | 265 | 265 |
| Cache (MB) | 512 | 512 | 512 | 512 |
| Workload Rate Limit (WRL) | 550 | 550 | 300 | 550 |
| Idle Mode (dBA) | 20 | 20 | 20 | 20 |
| Seek Mode (dBA) | 32 | 26 | 32 | 32 |
| Idle Power (W) | 5.7 | 6.0 | 3.4 | 5.6 |
| Active Power (W) | 7.1 | 7.9 | 6.8 | 6.9 |
Seagate is a bit late to the 22TB party. Western Digital's 22TB drives from the company's Purple Pro (surveillance), Gold (enterprise), and Red Pro (NAS) portfolio have been on the retail market since last year. The official MSRP for the IronWolf Pro 22TB is $599.99, similar to its rivals. However, Newegg currently sells the IronWolf Pro 22TB for $399.99, down from the regular listing price of $479.99. It's unknown if the retailer made a pricing mistake or if it's running a special promotion for the IronWolf Pro 22TB launch.
At $399.99, the IronWolf Pro 22TB is just $70 more expensive than the 20TB model ($329.99). That means you're paying $18.18 per terabyte, which is fantastic if you need ample storage. At the current price tag, the IronWolf Pro 22TB is cheaper than its direct rival, the WD Red Pro 22TB, which retails at $498.88. Like the competition, Seagate backs the IronWolf Pro 22TB with a limited five-year warranty.
