SOLVED: What is the Difference Between the Seagate BaraCuda Pro and IronWolf Pro & Why is IronWolf Cheaper?

For the last few days we have been banging around the idea of large 14TB disks and we wanted to source the fastest, most reliable, least expensive disks possible.  We know the Seagate BaraCuda is targeted to desktops / workstations and the Seagate IronWolf is targeted at disk arrays, wanted to know the physical difference between these two.

When the IronWolf was released under Seagate’s new branding strategy a few years ago, the difference was both performance and sensors.  Specifically, the IronWolf was a little be slower than the BaraCuda but it had motion / impact sensors.  We found the IronW

olf 14TB to be about 10% less expensive than the BaraCuda 14TB which did not make much sense to us so we decided to check the detailed spec.

Unfortunately Seagate apparently does not want you to make comparisons between the disks because they use slightly different specification sheets for each one.  To get around this we spent an hour or so combining the two sheets into the spec’s you see below.

You can see that the BaraCuda 12TB and 14TB disks now have the same performance (transfer speed and latency) while on the older 10TB and 8TB models there is a tiny difference.

To summarize, the difference between the BaraCuda Pro and IronWolf Pro 14TB is:

1. The IronWolf has some additional sensors
2. The IronWolf is rated with a 20% increase in expected life (MTBF)
3. The IronWolf and Baracuda use slightly different amounts of electricity
4. The IronWolf CAN be used in a disk array, where as the BaraCuda is spec’d to be standalone (although we are fairly sure it would work fine in most arrays)
5. The IronWolf is cheaper (at least in April 2019 – see screen shot of Amazon prices to the right).

This can all be summed up with, there appears to be no advantage to buying the Seagate BaraCuda Pro.  Just buy an IronWolf and be happy 🙂

If you want to check the specifications yourself, click HERE for the BaraCuda Pro spec sheet brochure and HERE for the IronWolf Pro spec sheet brochure.

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Specifications	BaraCuda 14TB	Ironwolf 14TB	BaraCuda 12TB	Ironwolf 12TB
Standard Model Numbers	ST14000DM001	ST14000NE0008	ST12000DM001	ST12000NE0007
Performance
Max. Sustained Transfer Rate OD (MB/s)	250MB/s	250MB/s	250MB/s	250MB/s
Average Latency (ms)	4.16	4.16	4.16	4.16
Spindle Speed (RPM)	7200	7200	7200	7200
SATA Transfer Rates Supported (Gb/s)	6.0/3.0/1.5	6.0/3.0/1.5	6.0/3.0/1.5	6.0/3.0/1.5
Interface Access Speed (Gb/s)	SATA 6Gb/s	SATA 6Gb/s	SATA 6Gb/s	SATA 6Gb/s
Drive Bays Supported	1	Up to 16 Bays	1	Up to 16 Bays
1 Workload Rate Limit (TB/year)	300	300	300	300
Rotational Vibration (RV) Sensors	No	Yes	No	Yes
2 Hot-Plug Support	No?	Yes	No?	Yes
Cache (MB)	256	256	256	256
Reliability/Data Integrity
Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF, hours)	1000000	1200000	1000000	1200000
Non-recoverable Read Errors per Bits	1 per 10E15	1 per 10E15	1 per 10E15	1 per 10E15
Power-On Hours per Year (24×7)	8760	8760	8760	8760
Data Recovery and Rescue Services	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Limited Warranty (years)	5	5	5	5
Power Management
Startup Current, Typical (12V, A)	2	2	2	2
Idle Power, Average (W)	6.9	5.3	6.9	5
Average Operating Power (W)	4.9 W	7.9W	4.9 W	7.8W
Standby Mode (W)	0.8/0.8	0.8	0.8/0.8	0.8
Environmental /Temperature
Operating (ambient, min)	0°C	5	0°C	5
Operating (drive case, max °C)	60	60	60	60
Nonoperating (ambient, min °C)	-40	-40	-40	-40
Nonoperating (ambient, max °C)	70	70	70	70
Environmental /Acoustics
Vibration, Nonoperating: 10Hz to 500Hz (Grms)	2.27	2.27	2.27	2.27
Environmental/Shock
Shock, Operating 2ms (Read/Write) (Gs)	70/40Gs	70/40Gs	70/40Gs	70/40Gs
Shock, Nonoperating, 1ms and 2ms (Gs)	250	250	250	250
Physical
Height (mm/in, max)	26.11 mm/1.028 in	26.11mm/1.028i n	26.11 mm/1.028 in	26.11mm/1.028i n
Width (mm/in, max)	101.85 mm/4.01 in	101.85mm/4.01i n	101.85 mm/4.01 in	101.85mm/4.01i n
Depth (mm/in, max)	146.99 mm/5.787 in	146.99mm/5.787in	146.99 mm/5.787 in	146.99mm/5.787in
Weight (lb/g)	690 g/1.521 lb	695g/1.532lb	690 g/1.521 lb	705g/1.55lb
Carton Unit Quantity	20	20	20	20
Cartons per Pallet / Cartons per Layer	14824	14824	14824	14824

 

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Specifications	BaraCuda 10TB	IronWolf 10TB	BaraCuda 8TB	IronWolf 8TB
Standard Model Numbers	ST10000DM001	ST10000NE0004	ST8000DM0004	ST8000NE0004
Performance
Max. Sustained Transfer Rate OD (MB/s)	220MB/s	214MB/s	220MB/s	214MB/s
Average Latency (ms)	4.16	4.16	4.16	4.16
Spindle Speed (RPM)	7200	7200	7200	7200
SATA Transfer Rates Supported (Gb/s)	6.0/3.0/1.5	6.0/3.0/1.5	6.0/3.0/1.5	6.0/3.0/1.5
Interface Access Speed (Gb/s)	SATA 6Gb/s	SATA 6Gb/s	SATA 6Gb/s	SATA 6Gb/s
Drive Bays Supported	1	Up to 16 Bays	1	Up to 16 Bays
1 Workload Rate Limit (TB/year)	300	300	300	300
Rotational Vibration (RV) Sensors	No	Yes	No	Yes
2 Hot-Plug Support	No	Yes	No	Yes
Cache (MB)	256	256	256	256
Reliability /Data Integrity
Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF, hours)	1000000	1200000	1000000	1200000
Non-recoverable Read Errors per Bits	1 per 10E15	1 per 10E15	1 per 10E15	1 per 10E15
Power-On Hours per Year (24×7)	8760	8760	8760	8760
Data Recovery and Rescue Services	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Limited Warranty (years)	5	5	5	5
Power Management
Startup Current, Typical (12V, A)	2	2	1.8	2
Idle Power, Average (W)	6.9	5	6.8	4.4
Average Operating Power (W)	4.9 W	7.8W	4.4 W	7.4W
Standby Mode (W)	0.8/0.8	0.8	0.8/0.8	0.8
Environmental /Temperature
Operating (ambient, min)	0°C	5	0°C	5
Operating (drive case, max °C)	60	60	60	60
Nonoperating (ambient, min °C)	-40	-40	-40	-40
Nonoperating (ambient, max °C)	70	70	70	70
Environmental /Acoustics
Vibration, Nonoperating: 10Hz to 500Hz (Grms)	2.27	2.27	2.27	2.27
Shock, Operating 2ms (Read/Write) (Gs)	70/40Gs	70/40Gs	70/40Gs	70/40Gs
Shock, Nonoperating, 1ms and 2ms (Gs)	250	250	250	250
Physical
Height (mm/in, max)	26.11 mm/1.028 in	26.11mm/1.028i n	26.11 mm/1.028 in	26.11mm/1.028i n
Width (mm/in, max)	101.85 mm/4.01 in	101.85mm/4.01i n	101.85 mm/4.01 in	101.85mm/4.01i n
Depth (mm/in, max)	146.99 mm/5.787 in	146.99mm/5.787in	146.99 mm/5.787 in	146.99mm/5.787in
Weight (lb/g)	690 g/1.521 lb	705g/1.55lb	650 g/1.433 lb	650g/1.433lb
Carton Unit Quantity	20	20	20	20
Cartons per Pallet / Cartons per Layer	14824	14824	14824	14824