Best HDD's for NAS in 2024
From Seagate, WD, Toshiba, Synology and MDD
A powerful NAS enclosure is nothing without its bays being populated with Hard Disk Drives (HDDs) or Solid State Drives (SSDs) to store all your valuable data. Disk drives are the workhorses of network-attached storage and other servers. But you can’t just insert a regular hard drive and see what happens.
The best NAS hard drives have been specifically developed to withstand a NAS environment’s environmental conditions and demands. They can cope with minimal downtime and remain functional amidst high temperatures and continual vibration. So, if you’re looking for a drive with much more going on than just storage, our roundup of the best NAS hard drives delivers disk drives that balance performance with value for money.
Feature-packed NAS hard drives to pair with your NAS
Best overall
Seagate IronWolf Pro
- Robust 3.5-inch hard drive with gold standard performance
If you can’t afford any downtime, the Seagate IronWolf Pro is a hard-wearing 3.5-inch SATA drive engineered for 24/7 operation. This 20 TB NAS can juggle up to 550 TB of data per year with excellent RAID performance and three years of complimentary data recovery from IronWolf.
Pros
- eSATA interface for easy install
- 7200 RPM spinning speed and Conventional Magnetic Recording
- 256MB cache speeds up read/write
Cons
- Extra services add to the upfront cost
- Can run noisy
IronWolf has an excellent reputation for hardworking NAS hard drives. This 3.4-inch IronWolf Pro, available in sizes ranging from 8 to 20TB, is specifically configured for multi-bay RAID performance with industry-standard features like dual-plane balancing, rotational vibration, and time-limited error recovery (TLER).
This disk drive will keep up with the most challenging environments, delivering 24/7 service with resilience against temperature and vibration. As it can handle 550TB annual workload without breaking a sweat, it is a worthwhile buy for business NAS owners.
In addition, Seagate has piled on the value with a decent five-year warranty and an impressive three-year free subscription to their data recovery service, offering complimentary data recovery from the drive if it becomes damaged.
Premium pick
Western Digital WD Gold - Data center-ready hard drive for your office NAS
The WD Gold is an enterprise-grade NAS drive, best suited to a data center. The 7200 RPM and 256MB cache are ideal for delivering lightning-fast read-write speeds. 24/7 performance and 2.5 million hours of Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) maximize the uptime that every growing business relies on.
Pros
- Great value 8 TB enterprise-grade NAS
- Generous 5-year limited warranty'
- Durable hardware with in-built vibration protection.
Cons
- No data recovery service provided
- Smallest NAS sizes are lower-spec
The Western Digital WD Gold Enterprise-Class NAS drive is a great buy for users who want to ramp up their storage to rackmount or even data center standard storage. This 3.5-inch SATA drive is engineered for a server environment with proprietary sensors that monitor linear and rotational vibration in real time to correct and protect its energy-assisted magnetic recording (EAMR).
Read-write speeds are lightning-fast due to the generous 246 MB cached and 7200 RPM drive speed. In addition, Western Digital has ensured that your uptime is safeguarded with a guaranteed 2.5 million hours of mean time between failures (MTBF). But watch out for the 1 and 2TB sizes because they get you slightly inferior features, like just 128MB of cache, making the IronWolf Pro or WD Red a better buy for that size.
Best value
Western Digital WD Red Plus
- The ‘plus’ upgrade that’s light on your pocket
Western Digital’s 3.5-inch WD Red Plus NAS drive with e-SATA interface is a cost-effective SATA drive that doesn’t skimp on performance. Though it has a little more oomph than many consumer NASs and can work in a 24/7 environment, it’s only designed to work in NAS sizes up to 8-bay.
Pros
- Multiple cache and storage options to choose from
- RAID compatibility with leading file management systems
- Fast file transfer and backups
Cons
- Smaller storage sizes come with slower drive speeds
- Can run noisy over time
This budget NAS drive is amazing value for money and a worthwhile purchase for content creators and small businesses ready to upgrade their data storage. You can confidently use this 3.5-inch NAS drive with NAS enclosures from leading brands like Synology and Drobo, with a 128 MB cache and 5,400 disk speed.
NASware and the e-SATA hard disk interface make setup easy, and the WD Red Plus delivers excellent RAID performance when used with leading file management systems like ZFS, XFS, or ext4. At this price, you may want to use this affordable NAS drive to populate a 24-bay rack. However, this drive performs at its best when used in NAS enclosures with eight bays or fewer.
Big on performance
Western Digital WD Red Pro -
A professional-grade NAS for commercial users
The WD Red Pro is Western Digital’s professional NAS drive, offering competent performance that is suitable for businesses. Headline specs of this 3.4-inch NAS drive include NASware 3.0 firmware, a 300TB/year workload, a 256MB cache, and a super-fast 7200 drive speed.
Pros
- NASware 3.0 optimizes RAID performance
- Compatible with 24-bay NAS storage systems
- Multi-axis shock protection
Cons
- 2TB option is best avoided
- Costs more than the IronWolf Pro
- High-frequency noise, even when idle
Western Digital’s WD Red Pro NAS drive is a slightly more expensive answer to the Seagate IronWolf Pro but offers excellent performance in the most demanding server environments. Its proprietary 3D Active Balance Plus multi-axis vibration protection provides resilience in larger NAS setups, and with a workload of up to 300TB per year, this NAS can be relied on in an enterprise setting.
Like the other ‘pro’-grade drives, the Red Pro features 7200 RPM drive speed and 256MB cache, but it’s WD’s NASware 3.0, with great RAID compatibility, that gives this hard drive an edge over competitors.