16TB Seagate Exos HDD - $387.55 @Provantage

[Anandtech1999]

Largest available capacity at the cheapest price. Beats NE and Amazon
I'm still waiting for the 18TB/20TB models to appear

PROVANTAGE: Seagate ST16000NM001G Exos X16 16TB Hard Disk Drive 512e/4Kn SATA 6Gb/s

Get Fast Service & Low Prices on ST16000NM001G Seagate Exos X16 16TB Hard Disk Drive 512e/4Kn SATA 6Gb/s and Much More at PROVANTAGE.

www.provantage.com

Exos X16 Model ST16000NM001G
UPC Code: 763649124147
Provantage Code: SEGE1K1
Condition: Factory New

• Product Type: Hard Drive
• Storage Capacity: 16 TB
• Drive Interface: SATA
• Spindle Speed (rpm): 7200
• Buffer: 256 MB

^^^^^^ Very likely to be SMR so (small) random writes likely to be very slow.

 

[Arx Allemand]

Definitely NOT SMR drives, and price is OK.
I would check to ensure Seagate actually honors the warranty though.
I bought these from Amazon and the Seagate Warranty check indicated that they were sold as part of a system and warrantied by the OEM. So if the drive fails (and lots of these do unfortunately) you're not getting it replaced under warranty!

 

[SamirD]

Provantage is a solid and legit distributor, even moreso than NE and Amazon ime as they don't and won't have a problem like they do with fakes. I would expect no issues with any warranty issues, and that is a killer price on 16TB.

 

[BenJeremy]

I just have no faith in Seagate drives. My experiences with them have been terrible since they acquired Maxtor, probably 95% of the Seagate drives I've bought since then have died way too early.

I'm even leery about using large WD drives, but they've been far more reliable. In an ideal world, Hitachi would be making 16TB drives and they'd be available at a reasonable price (they do make a 14TB drive, but it's rather pricey).

 

[SamirD]

Seagate on the high end is still the same quality they used to be, and this Exos 16TB is the pinnacle of that as it is also available in sas, which have to be seriously 24x7 reliable. You may be comforted to know that a good percentage of sas 2.5" 10k and 15k drives that resell after 10yrs+ in operation are made by Seagate. I have many of them and they still work well. I wouldn't write off the entire brand by the follies of their consumer drives division.

WD has also had their challenges, and if you would have told me 20 years ago that the junky WD brand (as they were known then) was going to be one of the the top drive makers in the world in the future, I would have said you were dreaming.

Remember that HGST (Hitachi) was bought by WD many years back, and a lot of WD's larger drives are actually based off of HGST research and design. They actually lucked out buying HGST because if Seagate would have bought them versus Maxtor/Quantum, Seagate would be on top as their expertise of reliable enterprise storage would have been second to none. I still remember when Seagate was the absolute top dog in the enterprise--they actually invented 10k and 15k drives.

These drives will never be cheap because what they do is worth paying a premium for. The day these do become cheap is the day I'll be worried that serious corners have been cut on quality and reliability.

 

[BenJeremy]

Seagate on the high end is still the same quality they used to be, and this Exos 16TB is the pinnacle of that as it is also available in sas, which have to be seriously 24x7 reliable. You may be comforted to know that a good percentage of sas 2.5" 10k and 15k drives that resell after 10yrs+ in operation are made by Seagate. I have many of them and they still work well. I wouldn't write off the entire brand by the follies of their consumer drives division.

WD has also had their challenges, and if you would have told me 20 years ago that the junky WD brand (as they were known then) was going to be one of the the top drive makers in the world in the future, I would have said you were dreaming.

Remember that HGST (Hitachi) was bought by WD many years back, and a lot of WD's larger drives are actually based off of HGST research and design. They actually lucked out buying HGST because if Seagate would have bought them versus Maxtor/Quantum, Seagate would be on top as their expertise of reliable enterprise storage would have been second to none. I still remember when Seagate was the absolute top dog in the enterprise--they actually invented 10k and 15k drives.

These drives will never be cheap because what they do is worth paying a premium for. The day these do become cheap is the day I'll be worried that serious corners have been cut on quality and reliability.

You may be right about the high end drives, but if they care so little about their consumer drives, that they can't even last out a year without dying, it doesn't instill me with any confidence in any of their drives. When they bought Maxtor, it seems like they only kept the worst of Seagate and Maxtor engineering.

 

[SamirD]

You may be right about the high end drives, but if they care so little about their consumer drives, that they can't even last out a year without dying, it doesn't instill me with any confidence in any of their drives. When they bought Maxtor, it seems like they only kept the worst of Seagate and Maxtor engineering.

The consumer must not be a big enough customer to care about. WD never cared about enterprise and just bought into it when they got HGST. Maxtor and Quantum did make really good products, but Seagate got them when they also were having financial difficulties. I think the move to remove Mr. Shugart from the company that once beared his name (Seagate originally was Shugart) was a bad move on Seagate's part. Removing the man that invented the entire hard drive industry? Yeah, not smart.

I have some Lacie externals that are Seagates internally. I got them open box new and they have a 3yr warranty so the full warranty applies. One of the drives was doa (probably from original purchaser), so I had to warranty that one, but the replacement has been doing well and all 4 are seem to be working fine.

Our point of sale systems also use Seagates and aside from the Intel fake raid issues that caused us to swap a disk (which was actually still good), the Seagates in that environment have also worked well.

I don't think any brand will have 100% success in terms of products. There just will be failures because we can't be perfect, and most don't even strive for perfection.

 

[continuum]

Damn... tempting. Wasn't going to upgrade to 12TB or 14TB, but 16TB at that price? Hmmmm...

 

[VirtualLarry]

I wonder if these would work in my 4-bay Asustor AS6104T NAS unit. Hmm.

 

[SamirD]

Damn... tempting. Wasn't going to upgrade to 12TB or 14TB, but 16TB at that price? Hmmmm...

And wait until the 20TB drives hit. I haven't seen any of those yet even though they were supposed to be in the channel by now. But when they do, there will be a price ripple all the way down.

 

[SamirD]

I wonder if these would work in my 4-bay Asustor AS6104T NAS unit. Hmm.

Check it out and let us know if it is supported! I'm very curious if you get some of these.

 

[bigboxes]

I just have no faith in Seagate drives. My experiences with them have been terrible since they acquired Maxtor, probably 95% of the Seagate drives I've bought since then have died way too early.

I'm even leery about using large WD drives, but they've been far more reliable. In an ideal world, Hitachi would be making 16TB drives and they'd be available at a reasonable price (they do make a 14TB drive, but it's rather pricey).

That's funny. I just threw a Seagate in the trash just a few hours ago. It had been sitting on my desk for an undetermined time. I finally decided to check on it. DOA. I used to be such a proponent of Seagate. Just back your data up, I used to say. Went all in on HGST when I got tired of dying drives. Then WD bought out HGST.

 

[SamirD]

That's funny. I just threw a Seagate in the trash just a few hours ago. It had been sitting on my desk for an undetermined time. I finally decided to check on it. DOA. I used to be such a proponent of Seagate. Just back your data up, I used to say. Went all in on HGST when I got tired of dying drives. Then WD bought out HGST.

Electronics should be recycled, not thrown away--especially when places most IT recyclers and drive salvage companies will gladly take a whole non-working drive. The pcbs, platters, and other components can be used to save another drive. Think of it as like an organ donor card.

The HGST technology that made HGST known is still found in the WD branded drives for enterprise computing, so no worries there unless you're buying things like shucked drives or whatnot.

 

[BenJeremy]

Electronics should be recycled, not thrown away--especially when places most IT recyclers and drive salvage companies will gladly take a whole non-working drive. The pcbs, platters, and other components can be used to save another drive. Think of it as like an organ donor card.

The HGST technology that made HGST known is still found in the WD branded drives for enterprise computing, so no worries there unless you're buying things like shucked drives or whatnot.

I recycle my drives by opening them up for the awesome rare earth magnets and my wife likes to use the platters and spindle parts for craft projects.

 

[SamirD]

I recycle my drives by opening them up for the awesome rare earth magnets and my wife likes to use the platters and spindle parts for craft projects.

Re-use is the first and best step in recycling.